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TRAPPED 



TRAPPED 


BY 

LOUISE HENRY COWAN 

(MRS. JAMES CRAIG COWAN) 



OR\e Christopher Publishing Hous« 
Boston, U. S. A. 


Copyright 1924 

BY THE CHRISTOPHER PUBLISHING HOUSE 



PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 


DEDICATED 
To cMy Daughter 
MARIE LOUISE STARLING. 


An encouragement to all who have tapped', 
knocked, banged or battered, at 
the door of “Success.” 


% 


FOREWORD 


I wish, to express special obligation to the Azoth and other 
magazines, to Edward Herrman, Eliphas Levi, DuPrel, Madam Bla- 
vatsky, Nostradamus, Bjerregaardi, Edtward Carpenter, C. Janara- 
jadasa, and other writers on East Indian mysticism and Theosophy, 
for many of the* conversations in this story. 

I also desire to extend thanks to Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart, 
C. Sarolea, Price Collier, The Vicksburg Herald, The Memphis Com¬ 
mercial Appeal, and other newspapers, for some of the occurances and 
conversations in the following pages. 

The story was written in the fall of 1914 and the spring of 
1915. In my desire to be just—and neutral—I wrote to the Ger- 
man-American Association for their strongest propaganda in de¬ 
fense of their course in Belgium and the origin of the war. As I 
bought the pamphlets furnished me, I suppose they were what I 
asked for. Therefore, I feel in presenting the German cause by 
their own writers, that I have given the Central Powers full justice; 
and I have also been generous in depicting German characters and 
war incidents. 

I was in Europe during the first of the war, and have written 
an accurate picture of what I saw and heard, and of that which 
was described to me by others, in places where it was impossible for 
me to go. 


■ 






TABLE OF CONTENTS 


I. Where the Threads Crossed 11 

II. A Bit of Margery’s Past. 12 

III. The Magic Square. 15 

IV. The Miniature. 16 

V. Drifting. 21 

VI. Lady Florence and Margery Plan a Shopping Bee 

in Paris. 23 

VII. The Heart of Old; England. 27 

VIII. A Page From the Past 31 

IX. “The Best Laid Plans....” 35 

X. The Jest. 3'9 

XI. Lord' Carnes Throws Down an Astounding 

Challenge 44 

XII. The Stool of Penitence. 46 

XIII. The Magic of the Square Fails. 49 

XIV. The Dinner Guest. 52 

XV. The Locket Becomes an Amulet. 56 

XVI. Amos Vows a Vow. 63 

XVII. “The Other Man” Dims the Charm of the Amulet. 69 

XVIII. Lady Florence Serves Tea, With a Sauce of Kaiser- 

ism. 71 

XIX. Margery Reaches the Parting of the Ways. 75 

XX. Mr. Holt Thinks of Oakhurst, While Lord Carnes 

Suggests a Way to Win the War. 78 

XXI. Amos Finds a Short Cut. 82 

XXII. The Magic of the Square Encloses Margery at the 

Railroad Station. 84 

XXIII. Margery Views a “Close-up” of the Glory and 

Panoply of War. 85 

XXIV. A New Friend. 90 

XXV. The Accolade. 93 

XXVI. An Hour Off Becomes an Enchanted Space in a 

Little Country of Great People. 96 

XXVII. The Death Chamber. 101 

XXVIII. Margery Thinks a Little. 103 

XXIX. A Blue-eyed Soldier Walks the Wards With Mar¬ 
gery. 104 

XXX. An Unexpected Military Order. 107 

XXXI. At the Junction. 112 

XXXII. Amos Takes the First Step Towards the Goal of 
His Oath. 


119 


XXXIII. A Subaltern Refuses to Make Friendls with his 

Captain. 124 

XXXIV. Lady Florence Spins a Web. 130 

XXXV. Where She Was. 135 

XXXfVI. Margery Findls Her Great Moment. 136 

XXXVII.. An Alarm Clock Sets the Tfap. 140 

XXXVIII. A Cup of Cold Water. 144 

XXXIX. Margery’s Red Cross Uniform Leads Her to a 

Prince. 149 

XL. Paris Threatened. 154 

XLI. Clarence Holt Makes a Decision. 156 

XLII. Margery Hears a Discussion. 157 

XLIII. Margery Gets News of a Gay Subaltern. 165 

XLIV. An Unexpected Message. 170 

XLV. Margery Decides to Trust Her Own Judgment. 178 

XLVIij A Spy at the Front. 184 

XLVII. A Smashed Bottle. 186 

XLVIII. The Count Reappears at an Uncomfortable Junc¬ 
ture. 189 

XLIX. Two Officers Seem Impertinent. 195 

L. Margery’s Drive Becomes an Adventure. 197 

LI. Amos Fulfils His Vow. 204 

LII. The Iron Cross, and a Wounded 1 Soldier. 206 

LIII. A Backward Glance. 213 

LIV. An Unwelcome Confession. 218 

LV. The Fraulein can not Stop Events. 223 

LVI. Guards Make the Evening Strange. 226 

LVII.* Mice and Men. 232 

LVIII. A Vain Officer Evens Accounts. 233 

LIX. Idle Words Become a Boomerang. 239 

LX. A New Witness Introduced. 246 

LXI. Prince Mavalanka Returns Whence he Came. 256 

LXII. Happiness at Last. 259 


TRAPPED 


CHAPTER I. 

Where the Threads Crossed. 

“Now what is there for me to do?” wondered Amos Russell des¬ 
pairingly, almost desperately. 

With a restlessness born of misery, he stood hat in hand, be¬ 
fore a window in the X. Y. Z. office, that overlooked a tiny park. 
But his blurred eyes saw neither the trees nor hedges with their 
slight powder of spring snow. Instead, he was looking at the shaft 
of white marble which he had the day previous placed above the 
grave of his mother. Examining designs, selecting the stone, and 
finding a suitable inscription, had furnished occupation during the 
terrible weeks since the funeral. He was now drearily asking him¬ 
self: “How am I to fill my leisure hours—the long, intolerable 
evenings?” 

In all the world there was not one person whom he could call 
friend. Except in a business way he knew nobody in London. As 
he faced this utter lonliness, the dreadful feeling: “What’s the 
use?” weighed him. He did not realize that such isolation for a 
man of twenty-three was morbid. Nor did he dream that he was 
held by the chains of habit; that because he had never learned the 
art of making friends, he could not now—in his hour of dire need— 
reach out and fill the gap in his soul. 

Twisting his hat in a motion of agony, he walked to his desk, 
dully repeating over and over: 

“Now what is left for me to do?” 

Some one knocked at the door. 

“Come in,” he called automatically. 

Margery Keblinger entered. For the last month Florence Flem¬ 
ming—as he knew her—had come at this hour every day with trans¬ 
lations of telegrams and letters, that he was to receive. 

He had utterly forgotten her, he recalled, as he nodded good 
morning. 

The hat in his hand, arrested in its quick motion, caught her 
glance. She remembered his absence of a week. The smile in her 
eyes faded out as they fell on the new crepe band. 

She breathed a sympathetic “Oh!” and impulsively extended her 
hand. “You—you are in deep sorrow.” she gasped tenderly. 


12 


TRAPPED 


“Yes, my mother/* the boy replied simply. In spite of himself 
his eyes filled with tears. 

“Your mother/’ repeated the girl softly. “Ah, I know what that 
means. I have lost—my mother, too. My father left us long be 
fore.” 

Her tears overflowed, and she hastily wiped them off her cheeks. 

Her unexpected sympathy touched the depths of the boy’s 
nature. Before he knew how he was saying it, he was telling her of 
his half-crazing loneliness since his mother’s death. 

“I am sorry—so sorry for you. I know all you feel. I am 
just like you, utterly alone!’’ For a moment she sobbed in her 
handkerchief. Then, in sudden confidence—that he knew was gen¬ 
uine—she told him of her mother's death. “We lived on the con¬ 
tinent—and had such gay, happy times together. Afterwards—I—I 
had to go to the school of Arts and Sciences—Oh! years!” 

Forgetting his own grief for an instant, Amos Russell listened. 

“It was all simply perfectly awful!” the girl exclaimed tragi¬ 
cally. “Until.” 

She drew herself up with an appalled self-consciousness, and 
ended abruptly, “Until I secured this position here.” 

The knob of the office door turned, and voices were heard in 
the corridor. With embarrassed haste Margery placed the package 
in the hands of Amos. He quickly signed the official papers and 
gave her two receipts. With nervous fingers she pasted one in her 
note book and the other on the packet of original telegrams, that she 
was to file in another room. 

The door opened, and Mr. Clarence Holt, the head of the depart¬ 
ment, entered. Miss Keblinger bowed to him with averted face, and 
hurriedly left the apartment. 

“Quite a pretty girl,” remarked Mr. Holt, removing a rubber 
band from a bundle of letters on his desk. “Extraordinarily indif¬ 
ferent though” he added, half to himself. 

Clarence Holt’s prominence in the X. Y. Z. office made him 
generally an object of interest to women. 

“I-I believe she is,” responded, 1 the under-secretary. 


CHAPTER II. 


A Bit of Margery’s Past. 

“How about little god-daughter, Margery?” asked the Duke of 
Almont, as he took the cup of tea Lady Florence was extending. He 
was not particularly interested in his question. He let his eyes 



TRAPPED 


13 


wander around the rich, pleasant drawing room, before they came 
back to the countess. 

“Everything is going perfectly,” Lady Florence replied, a bit 
stiffly, “in spite of your predictions.” 

His Grace chuckled. “Has nobody discovered that your god¬ 
daughter and my great niece is working by the day; like any other 
laboring woman?” 

Lady Florence flushed. “It is only two hours in the morning. 
No one except my housekeepepr, who is absolutely trustworthy, need 
ever know that Margery is not as idle as the best—or worst—of 
us.” 

The old duke interrupted with another chuckle. 

“It would furnish a family sensation,” he admitted, “that might 
equal Alfred Keblinger’s elopement with Margery’s mother. ’The 
distractingly pretty daughter of David Lane, the wealthy manufact¬ 
urer.’ That is the way it appeared in the papers, if my memory 
is exact. I can truthfully say, my dear Lady Florence, that Lon¬ 
don was never more agog about our family, than when that marriage 
took place.” 

Lady Florence leaned forward. “Since you are speaking so 
freely to me, you may not think it impertinent if I ask how you 
hushed it all up so quickly. I was absent at the time—and did 
not hear the particulars.” But she failed to add, “It was I who 
helped them to run away.” 

“By getting Alfred immediately out of England. We secured 
him a position in the foreign legation at Berlin. Shipped him out! 
Pretty wife and all. Nothing but agreeable reports came back—oc¬ 
casionally. The girl, as you know, was accomplished—more, an ex¬ 
ceedingly charming woman. Fortunately when the child came, it 
was not a boy. No danger of David Lane’s grand-ehild inheriting 
the title, you see. We could afford to overlook the whole affair, es¬ 
pecially as old Lane was putting up the money for them. Alfred did 
not live long, you remember. They made few visits to London.” 
The duke held out his cup to be re-filled. “Another stroke of luck 
was the widow’s remaining abroad—living all over Europe. Though 
of course I had no idea that she was running through with the last 
ducat that her father had settled upon her!” 

The countess laughed half tauntingly. 

“When you discovered that, you had your sensation! A girl 
pretty enough to turn the head of any man, with charm and poise 
that the English-bred simply never have at that age, dumped on you, 
and your son and heir in the house!” She laughed softly. “Lady 
Caroline told me how you rushed over to her and demanded that she 
take Margery away.” 

“It is like Caroline to tell you! Did she add that she and my 
sisters refused positively even to keep her over night?” 

Lady Florence shook her head, and he continued. “I swore a 


14 


TRAPPED 


little, I dare say. Margery could flirt with the Crown Prince him¬ 
self! She learned it on the Continent watching her mother, I sup¬ 
pose. I had to think of my boy.” The Duke looked a bit sheepish. 

“Especially when the girl was absolutely penniless and the es¬ 
tate in debt.” 

“Precisely.” nodded the Duke. “Even Caroline realized that 
something had to be done; and finally came forward with the proposi¬ 
tion to place her in the School of Arts and Sciences, of which you 
are the worthy patroness. Margery’s bare one hundred pounds from 
her father met the expense easily.” 

“When the poor child wanted to work for a living—how you 
stormed!” smiled Lady Florence audaciously. “My pet hope in 
founding that school was to inculcate in English girls a desire to sup¬ 
port themselves—as American young women do.” 

“I firmly believe, my dear Lady Florence,” said the Duke, “that 
Margery got so tired in the school of the one thing she could do— 
that first-aid nursing training—that any change was a relief, even 
the desperate one of making her own way in London.” 

“I don’t agree with you,” rejoined the countess uncomfortably. 
Evidently she had had the same thought. “'She knows Russian, 
German, Spanish and French well enough to be a native of any of 
those countries. Why shouldn’t she use the talent? And she will 
never flirt with any of the clerks she meets in the X. Y. Z. office.” 

“I am perfectly certain of that.” The old duke smiled enigmat¬ 
ically into his cup. “Your finding a situation where her one ac¬ 
complishment—familiarity with most continental languages—could 
be transmuted into money, was an inspiration. It was equaled 
though, by your idea of entering her there under her middle name— 
Florence Fleming—and taking her into your own home.” The Duke 
dropped his light tone. “But indeed, Lady Florence, we are deeply 
grateful to you for your kindness to our great niece. I stopped 
in to tell you some good news for Margery. It could not, however, 
have been possible without your wise intervention, and care of her 
during the past weeks.” 

Lady Florence looked up eagerly. 

But the entrance of her half-brother, Lord Pan-Muir Dalhou- 
sie, who had just arrived from Scotland, interrupted. 

“I shall come again—with the information,” the Duke said, un¬ 
der his breath, as he took up his hat. 

“It is just like him to leave me in the air and dying of curiosity,” 
thought the countess, as she rose to meet her brother. “I believe he 
waited before mentioning it, until he heard Bertram’s voice.” 


TRAPPED 


15 


CHAPTER III. 

The Magic Square 

Two minutes after her flood of tears, in the office of Amos 
Russell, or to be exact, by the time she had delivered the receipts 
Amos had given her to the recorder, Margery Keblinger was as 
happy as if she had not wept. Possibly the tears bathed and eased 
her wound. She was one of those rare women to whom surface 
weeping is becoming. She knew her brown eyes swimming in tears 
were irresistibly tender—and her keen sympathies seized naturally 
on this outlet. Both tears and impulses, however, were transitory. 
Nothing below the surface in the girl had been touched. Before 
she turned the corner in the corridor ishe had forgotten the little 
shower! 

The desk of Miss Florence Fleming—as Lady Florence’s ward 
was known in the X. Y. Z. office— was at one end of a long room 
where there was a buzz of work all day; and many people constant¬ 
ly came and went. Every morning Margery took her seat here, 
pulled a shade over her forehead—it would be convenient should an 
acquaintance chance to enter—and concentrating upon her task, 
in spite of distractions, did her work well. She translated tele¬ 
grams and letters from German, French, Russian, Flemish and Span¬ 
ish, into English. iShe referred to her dictionary only when technical 
language was used. The work seemed so simple, that she often won¬ 
dered at the salary she received. Promptly at eleven she took the 
translated copies to Amos Russell, under-secretary to Mr. Clarence 
Holt, head of the department. 

“Mr. Russell is very good looking,” she thought this morning as 
she straightened her desk, preparatory to leaving. “I should not 
though, have been quite so cordial. To-morrow I’ll put things back 
on their former footing. Lady Florence would have been shocked if 
she had seen me.” 

When the girl first entered the office she held to the advice 
of the wise countess, “Attend to your duties in a dignified manner, 
and have no social relations with any one in the building. Your 
friends must be in your own circle.” Margery had practiced aloof¬ 
ness in the school of Arts and Sciences, whose atmosphere she had 
described to Amos Russell as “perfectly awful”; and it was very easy 
for her to be “aloof” in the X. Y. Z. office. As the weeks passed, 
however, and the pleasant bustle around her became familiar, her 
reserve unconsciously thawed. When receiving instructions, or giv¬ 
ing explanations, a smile would bubble up from a happy heart. She 
could not always remember that she was almost noble! the grand¬ 
niece of the Duke of Almont. Particularly, when he was such a 
disagreeable old beggar, who, with all his money had done nothing 
for her when she was absolutely in need. But the change that had 


16 


TRAPPED 


taken place in her, like all natural ones, was imperceptible; and to the 
girl—who never analyzed herself—her impulsive advance to Amos 
Russell was totally unexpected. 

“Nothing like that shall occur again,” she promised herself, as 
she stood on the stool in the cloak room, to peek into the mirror and 
give to her charming eyes a smile of approval. 

When she left the office she crossed the narrow street and en¬ 
tered a square, edged on all sides by hedges too high to look over. 
To the girl this was enchanted ground. Within the magic of its 
shrubbery each morning “Margery Keblinger” was transformed into 
“Florence Flemming”— the girl who worked for pounds, shillings, 
and pence. A wave of Time’s wand—a scant two hours—and again 
within the witchery of its shade, Florence Flemming was charmed 
back into Margery Keblinger, and passed out the idle ward of a 
countess and great-niece of a duke. 

To-day as Margery threaded this bit of fairy land in the heart 
of London and emerged on the opposite side, Amos Russell and the 
X. Y. Z. off ice-wo rid were sponged entirely from her mind. 

She was to have the unusual pleasure of a quiet lunch with a 
sedate friend of Lady Florence’s, and afterward a visit to an art 
gallery. 

About tea time that afternoon, as she hurried happily home, re¬ 
membering with a thrill that she was to have dinner with Lady Flo¬ 
rence and her brother, Lord Dalhousie, who was expected from Scot¬ 
land, she saw the duke’s car before the door. She recognized 
the Almont crest on it. She felt the blood surge into her face. He 
never came to see her; though his visits to Lady Florence usually 
concerned her. She slipped in a side entrance, catching her breath 
uneasily. She would not go in for tea. 

“What is it, this time?” she wondered unhappily, as she mounted 
the stairs to her room. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The Miniature. 

“These sleeves are ducks!” Margery thought, patting affection¬ 
ately the sheer stuff over her lovely arms, as she adored her reflec¬ 
tion in the mirror of her dressing table. “No one will ever suspect 
this gown is an old one of my mother’s, remade.” 

Facing the long mirror she held a smaller one under her chin, 
with a side-downward glance, to catch the light on her bronze-gold 
lashes. Looking up again she surprised a smile eddying into dim¬ 
ples in her pink cheeks. 

“You perfectly beautiful, silly-girl,” she grinned softly; and 


TRAPPED 


17 


kissing her fingers to her satisfactory reflection, she ran, on the 
lightest feet in England, down to dinner. 

In the drawing room she found Lady Florence and her brother. 
It was the first time the countess had ever seen her god-daughter in 
anything approaching an evening gown. The girl’s radiance almost 
surprised her out of her British calm. “The man who wrote that 
beauty unadorned is most adorned was an idiot—or he had never 
seen Margery”—flashed through her mind. 

It was hardly a dinner party; there was only one other guest, 
Lord Carnes, an old friend of Lord Dalhousie. To Margery, however, 
the table with flowers and silken shades, the well served courses, 
and the butler in livery, were perfect! 

“A month ago I was in that horrible place!” she thought, as the 
ugly dining-room of the School of Arts and Sciences rose before her 
mind’s eye. 

She slipped her small foot in and out of her pump, just to enjoy 
the feeling of the silk stocking, to realize that she really was out 
of bondage. 

She felt that she had come into her own! 

“Lady Florence,” she whispered happily, as she passed out of the 
door with her into the drawing room, “Wouldn’t it be terrible if I 
should wake up—or something should happen—and this bliss should 
be but a tantilizing illusion?” 

“You foolish child!” reproved Lady Florence, but her eyes 
smiled. It was just a little wonderful for her to have common- 
sense kindness repaid with such unexpected dividends as Margery’s 
sparkling happiness. 

Her eyes fixed curiously on the girl. From a tiny platinum 
chain around her neck, hung a locket of exquisite workmanship. In 
the center blazed a monogram of small but perfect diamonds. 

“I thought when you entered school, your uncle put all your 
jewels in the bank?” 

“All except this,” replied the girl, placing her hand on the 
locket. “I wear it—underneath—all the time: I should feel lost 
without it.” She unclasped the chain and gave it to Lady Florence. 
“It was my last Christmas present to my father. He wore it al¬ 
ways on his fob.” 

The countess examined the trinket; on the reverse side was the 
family crest. 

“The day he died,” continued’ Margery softly, “he fastened it 
around my neck; and I’ve worn it there ever since.” 

iShe touched the spring of the locket, revealing an exquisite min¬ 
iature of her mother. 

“How lovely! How perfectly lovely!” exclaimed Lady Florence, 
going to the reading lamp to examine it. “How exactly you are like 
your mother with your hair arranged just as hers.” 

Margery’s ready blush swept her face in delighted confusion. 


18 


TRAPPED 


“I tried to dress my hair like Mamma’s. Do you think I succeeded ?” 

“Amazingly.” The countess was looking from the portrait to 
the girl. “That soft pompadour and the little love-locks and that 
red-gold curl over your shoulder are extremely becoming. You are a 
very fortunate girl to have had a mother from whom to inherit such 
good looks—and to have done it.” 

She replaced the locket around Margery’s slender throat, and 
snapped the clasp. Here the gentlemen joined them. 

Lady Florence rose. She knew these old cronies had much to 
talk about. She excused herself in order to look over important ac¬ 
counts. “Margery, please tell Miss Davis, the housekeeper, to meet 
me in the library.” 

After delivering the message to Miss Davis, Margery returned 
to the drawing room. The two gentlemen were talking so earnestly 
they did not see her enter. She felt that to speak would be an in¬ 
trusion; so she slipped) into a vast chair—and listened. 

“Surely you do not mean to imply,” Lord Dalhousie was saying, 
“that the ancient philosophers understood the Christian meaning of 
the Kingdom of Heaven?” 

“Most assuredly I do,” replied Lord Carnes spiritedly. “The 
true Stoic is not far from the Christian's ‘City of God.’ ” 

“You learnd strange things while you were in India!” laughed 
Lord Dalhousie. “If those old heathen could wake up, I don't be¬ 
lieve they would understand; what you claim for them.” 

“Oh yes! Marcus Aurelius calls the sinner a brother, ‘Partic¬ 
ipating not indeed in the same flesh and blood, but in the same mind 
and partnership with the divine.’ ” 

“Who is Marcus Aurelius?” wondered Margery. “He must be a 
clergyman,” she commented mentally; losing interest in this friend 
of Lord Carnes. 

“And Epictetus said. ‘Never in reply to the question, to what 
country do you belong, say you are an Athenian or a Corinthian, but 
that you are a citizen of the world.’ ” 

“Epictetus!” exclaimed Margery to herself. “What queer names 
his friends have.” She had seen something of society on the conti¬ 
nent, but men did not discourse upon such subjects. Neither did they 
leave her to grow drowsy in an easy chair. 

Dalhousie started to speak, but Carnes waved him to silence with 
another quotation: 

“ ‘He then, who has learned that the most comprehensive com¬ 
munity is that which is composed of men and God—why should not 
such a man call himself a citizen of the world, and why not a son of 
God?’ Is not that close to your kingdom?” 

“Possibly now and then, in their imaginary flights, the heathen 
touched it; but their lives were far from the teachings of the 


TRAPPED 


19 


lowly Jesus,” replied Lord Dalhousie, thoughtfully. “Zeno, you re¬ 
member, held that only good men are_” 

“Of course,” interrupted Carnes quickly, “If we look for those 
without the kingdom, their name is legion. I only contend that in 
every age of the past we find a few clinging to the true and only 
God.” 

“If this,” thought Margery, “is what society people in England 
talk about, it is not extraordinary that dear Mamma preferred the 
continent. Why if I have to converse in this way to young men— 
I shall never be popular!” 

“ ‘He only is great who serves mankind,’ ” quoted Lord Carnes 
with sudden energy. “This truth the earth is fast learning. If I 
read the signs correctly we are nearing the millennium—as it is com¬ 
monly called. Already the nations are preparing for arbitration, 
and not war, to settle disputes.” 

“I should like to believe you,” sighed Lord Dalhousie, “But as 
long as countries are armed to the teeth, the strongest will probably 
provoke a quarrel.” 

“You are wrong. The Great Brother will soon come from Asia 
and teach the true lesson of life. Disarmament will follow. We 
shall live to see it.” 

A smile twinkled in Lord Dalhousie‘s eyes as he said: “If I am 
to match my Scotch second-sight—which I don’t claim to possess,— 
against this ‘prevision’ you have gained by dipping into things oc¬ 
cult in India, I’ll wager that neither we nor our children shall live 
to see this everlasting peace.’” Then he went on more seriously. 
“Why Robert, we are further from it than in the days of Augustus 
Caesar, when the Prince of Peace was born.” He rose and slowly 
walked up and down the length of the room, Lord Carnes silently 
following him with his eyes, as Dalhousie continued: 

“The whole world has become idolatrous. England worships 
the God of Commerce; Germany, Mars; and America, Mammon. Each 
country, big or little, bows before its special deity; but none—as a 
whole people—worships, in spirit and in truth, the living God.” 

Margery’s eyes were closed. As in a dream she caught the word, 
“England.” Semi-consciously she wondered, “What will—happen to 
me in this old England? What is coming to meet me?” A curious 
sense of half shuddering seized her for a moment. Then, soothed 
by the murmur of voices, she fell asleep in the enormous chair. 

“Are you in earnest?” 

“Intensely so,” replied Dalhousie, stopping in his march. “As 
individuals and as nations we are idolators. We don’t set up graven 
images in our homes and in our churches; but each hugs some idol to 
his heart—wealth, love-of-ease, power,—or somethilng else. And 
because we fail to dub our deity by the name of some ancient god, 


20 


TRAPPED 


we pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves CHRISTIAN! Where 
do you find one who follows the teachings of the Christ?” 

There was a momentary pause. 

“And things are getting worse, instead of better,” Lord Dalhou- 
sie added, throwing himself into a chair. 

T am not a churchman,” remarked Lord Carnes, “but I do not 
take so gloomy a view. In my opinion each year the world grows 
better. Not in great leaps and bounds, but it goes steadily forward, 
guided by the ‘grand form, system, plan, of Eternal Will. And 
though, at present, many live blindly, the Inner Life people, the 
Mystics, live themselves. And they are teaching others what it is to 
live. There is no note of negativity. All is centrality, actually, ac¬ 
tivity, energy.’ It must, and it will, eventually sweep the earth; 
and.... ” 

“Eventually—possibly; but not now,” Dalhousie smiled wearily 
as he shook his head. “The world moves continually of course, 
though not always forward, but rather as a pendulum. I fear we are 
on the backward swing now. As I look about, there is little to en¬ 
courage the Utopian hopes you picture so graphically. In the most 
enlightened nations men, women,—ay, and little children—are sacri¬ 
ficed on the altar of Greed to Mammon! No country is free from this 
taint—this mad rush for money. Each year thousands of young girls 
are devoured by a worse monster than the Minotaur. Their souls, 
as well as their bodies, bartered for gold., Holy wedlock desecrated 
by many marriages. Millions of illegitimate children born each year. 
They start life handicapped. Why Price Collier states that in Berlin 
alone there are 20,000 annually. Have we any reason to hope there 
are fewer in London? Were Sodom and Gomorrah more vile? 
When I consider the wickedness of modern civilization—man’s in¬ 
humanity to man, and his defiance of all spiritual laws—I wonder 
at the patience of the Creator, the Jealous God of Israel. Nor 
would my amazement be great if a sudden cataclysm should sink the 
present continent—Atlantis like—into the ocean, and a second 
flood teach man the fear of God.” 

“It would only transform him into a savage brute, instead of an 
enlightened one,” announced Lord Carnes calmly. “Man’s nature 
cannot be changed by wholesale destruction. It was tried once—and 
failed.” 

Before Lord Dalhousie could reply, Lady Florence entered. 


TRAPPED 


21 


CHAPTER V. 

Drifting 

Lady Florence stood smiling at the two old men—absorbed in 
their eager argument—and Margery, asleep in the chair. She in¬ 
dicated the girl with a low laugh. 

“You've talked her into the land of dreams—which is not quite 
so bad as being talked to death!" 

“We did not know she was there!" cried Lord Dalhousie in 
surprise. 

^She must have entered very quietly," regretted Lord Carnes. 

What a really beautiful girl she is f I have a handsome nephew 
I must send to meet her, to make up for this lapse on my part." 

“Who is he?" asked Lady Florence. 

“A young lieutenant of the_" 

“Don't send him here," cautioned the hostess, smiling a warn¬ 
ing, “unless you are willing to risk his marrying a penniless girl. 
I do not wish to add a broken heart to Margery’s other misfortunes." 

Lord Carnes glanced at his watch, and murmured something 
about it being late. Margery awoke in time to hear him say: 

“I am leaving early to-morrow for Baden-Baden. My physician 
insists upon it. My long stay in India was almost too much for me." 

“Will your friend, Prince Mavalanka, of Rajputana join you 
there?" 

“Prince Mavalanka!" repeated Margery mentally. “That's even 
queerer than the other names." 

“Yes,” answered Lord Carnes, “but not as a prince. He is 
traveling as Mohini Doud, and I as Robert Dallas. In a country 
where titles are so worshipped, we'll feel freer so." 

“May all your dreams come true," Lord Dalhousie said, clasping 
the hand of his old friend. 

Lord Carnes smiled almost gaily. He bent over Margery’s hand. 
“I wish the same to you. May your dreams come true!" 

Margery swept him a glance from her bronze-gold lashes, with 
a charming little gasp. “And may they hurry!" she added. 

Lord Carnes looked at her as if something about her had just 
arrested him. “I believe they will," he said oddly. 

But nothing seemed to happen. 

On the morrow, the day Margery intended “to put everything back 
where it was" between her and Amos Russell, she found it impossible 
to find the level where they had met before. After a week’s real 
effort she stopped trying. In fact she felt that her consciousness 
of something to be set right, was a sort of bond that drew him to 
her, instead of pushing him back. 

“He seems really very nice,” she decided carelessly, “and it is 
pleasanter so. Indeed, it freshens up the day to have a good-looking 


22 


TRAPPED 


man exceedingly nice to you. Anyhow, what difference does it 
make?” 

Florence Flemming’s lovely face was making its impression on 
Amos Russell. At first her beauty to him was wonderful, as a rain¬ 
bow or a dazzling sunset is wonderful. If she had ignored him, he 
might have worshipped her as a sort of goddess; and later when he 
had given a maturer heart to another, she would have remained 
his “dream-girl.” 

When, however, she confessed, “I too, am alone in the world,” 
she sowed the dragon’s teeth in his love-hungry heart. 

He immediately pictured her loneliness as great as his own—and 
sympathy was born. When their eyes met daily over the telegrams, 
always, her lovely blush swept her face. He saw that quick down¬ 
ward sweep of her lashes, and he felt that he was looking upon a 
heart unfolding to him, and too naturally to conceal its promptings. 
His pulses quickened; and as the weeks passed he found himself 
watching for the hour, which brought the translations—and Florence 
Flemming. Soon the day began with her entrance, and ended with 
her exit. The remaining hours, imagination was at work on that 
marvelous structure—first love. 

She filled the void in his life, and he began to dream of filling 
the void in hers. 

After a late dinner, which since his mother’s death he prepared 
and served for occupation, he generally walked by the big dormi¬ 
tory connected with the School of Arts and Sciences, and wondered 
which window was hers. One day he dared to ask her. 

“I—you can’t see it—from the street,” she replied with a quick 
intake of breath. She flushed the deepest rose tint, and seemed so ut¬ 
terly confused, that the boy felt that the question was improper. He 
knew, though, that hundreds of women who earned their daily bread 
in London, lived there and received their friends in the big drawing 
room. As Florence never again referred to her life there, he did 
not either, though he longed to ask permission to call upon her. 

With the magic of love, imgaination took her into his cottage. 
It was no longer empty. He ate again in the dining room, for her 
sweet presence sat opposite in the vacant chair. He replaced the 
beautiful lamp his mother had given him upon his last birthday, 
and which had so long been hidden away because it too vividly re¬ 
called his desolation. Once more he read in the evenings, for Flo¬ 
rence’s quick intelligence, her culture from her wide travel, obser¬ 
vations that he had already heard from her lovely lips, chimed in 
with the thought of the page—then he would drop the book, trailing 
off into delicious imaginary conversations with her. In the witching 
twilights of the spring and early summer, she made all things bright 


TRAPPED 


23 


as she retreated or advanced to him in a sort of dreamy companion¬ 
ship. 

As June waned, he took the practical leap that connects a man 
vitally with a love affair. Like the king in his parlor he counted 
out his money. The house—a cozy, roomy, cottage—a small in¬ 
come from a farm with a larger one left by his mother, and a promise 
of a salary promotion in a few months, were his assets. 

“As soon as I am promoted I shall be able to give her a home— 
and about everything else a girl needs to make her happy.” 

This was Wednesday. By the following Saturday he reversed 
the first part of his decision. “I wont wait for an increase in my 
salary. Why should she spend lonely evenings in the school—and I 
here—when we might be together? I shall ask her the first 
moment I see her alone!” 

The bari determination set the universe spinning with joy. He 
dashed about the room, overturned a chair, and only by an effort 
kept down a great “Whoof!” Then he sank down in the righted 
chair with a grin that he felt ineffable, though he knew that it must 
look idiotic. 

“Asking her,” though, was more difficult than he anticipated. 
With Florence looking at him, and talking gaily, his tongue refused 
to utter what he had rehearsed glibly in his tiny domicile. 

“She knows, though,” he dreamed a million times, seeing her 
dimples drowned in her glorious blush, as he imagined her confessing 
she cared—“Just a little.” 

So the days drifted from weeks into months without anything 
occurring. True, a shot from the pistol of a crazy man in far off 
Bosnia shocked the world and jostled the wheels of diplomacy. What 
of that? It was the diplomat’s business to make adjustments and 
run the world-machinery smoothly. 

Florence Flemming looked a bit longer, each day, into Amos 
Russell’s fine eyes; and each day she left him wholly behind, as the 
magic of the square transformed her into Margery Keblinger, who 
hurried swiftly to the big London house, with the breakfast room on 
the sunny side. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Lady Florence and Margery plan a Shopping Bee in Paris. 

One day, early in August, as Margery entered, glad to leave 
the summer heat without, the butler told her that the countess 
wished to see her as soon as she came in, and was waiting for her 
in the library. 


24 


TRAPPED 


There seemed something unusual in the request. The girl’s 
heart quickened. 

“What can it be?” she wondered uneasily. 

Lady Florence met her in a side hall; drew her into the morning 
room, and down upon a sofa. 

“I am really much pleased with him,” she said with a gay 
little nod. 

“With whom? What it it,” asked Margery, her eyes shining 
with expectation. 

“The duke, my dear—your very unsatisfactory uncle. Last 
March he promised a settlement of your affairs, but has never 
opened the subject since; and I thought the diplomatic course was 
to also say nothing. This morning he has been here with a wonder¬ 
ful report. All the debts will be paid by October! Think of that!” 

“All the debts paid!” exclaimed the girl enthusiastically: and 
without the slightest hint of what was coming she hugged the coun¬ 
tess. Then she stood off and eyed her with the calmness of an 
equal. “How did it happen? I can’t believe it!” 

The countess smoothed herself out a little—with a gurgling 
chuckle. “The duke helped to make it happen. This is why I am 
pleased with him. One of these fabulously rich Americans, took a 
fancy to your estate, Oakhurst, and offered an enormous sum for it. 
The duke seeing he was distracted to get it—trebled the enormous 
sum—and the American signed a five year’s lease on the spot! 
Paying the debts is not all. In October you will begin to receive 
quarterly, a regular income!” 

“A quarterly income! Oh, lovely!” cried Margery pinching her 
hand. “I know I shall wake up.” 

They both laughed. 

“The perfectly delightful part you haven’t heard yet.” Lady 
Florence tried to say it sedately. “The income—is three times what 
we ever dared hope it could be. I really feel I could shout over 
it all!” 

Her ward suddenly caught the countess about the waist and 
danced her around the room; her lady-ship falling into the old- 
time waltz, until she lost her breath, and her hair-pins spilled over 
the floor. 

If she thought Margery radiant the evening she first saw her 
in a dinner gown, she felt she was a bit of the sun now. Her un¬ 
usual color was rising and falling in her face—and her eyes were 
light itself- A great sense of pride in her beauty came over 
the countess. She had brought this happiness to the girl—she 
would be rewarded by seeing her capture London. Suddenly, too, 
she realized in this flare and sparkle of the girl, how Margery had 
been repressed—how she must have hated the school—as the duke 


TRAPPED 


25 


had shrewdly guessed she had—how far the X. Y. Z. office had been 
from all she really wanted to do. 

“When your vacation begins you must resign/’ said her lady¬ 
ship suddenly. In a week or two we shall run over to Paris and 
have your measures taken, and see about hats—and use your salary 
for buying some things. In October we will go back, armed—” 

“With a quarterly income!” cried Margery clasping her hands 
estatically. 

The countess, added the last word for any girl’s expectations. 

“I shall at once begin arrangements for your presentation at the 
First Drawing Room. You will create a sensation!” 

Margery received this in audible silence. She was really too 
happy to breathe. 

“To-morrow I shall see all your aunts, and tell them I intend 
giving you a large reception early in the season; and ask what they 
are going to do; for of course they will want to do something!” 

Lady Florence grinned at the fun she would derive from these 
“hold-ups” of Margery’s relatives. 

“You shall be seen more—now— and it shall be known that your 
debut is near. Come, let's go through your mother’s trunks. There 
is no material in London more beautiful; and Madam Sophie is a 
witch when it comes to remodeling.” 

As they went towards the stairs Lady Florence added: “I shall 
ask your uncle for some of your simpler jewels.” To herself she was 
saying, “She will be the success of the season.” 

Before they reached the hall-way Margery’s head was as full of 
air-castles, as Amos Russell’s. The architecture of the dream-pala¬ 
ces were similar only in one particular—Margery was the central 
figure in both. 

“Extra! Extra! Extra!” shrilled a news boy without. The 
unheeded sound floated in through an open window. Lady Florence 
paused to give an order to the butler. 

The front door opened, and Miss Davis entered, her hat awry. 
She sank limply into the nearest chair, and hardly above a whisper 
breathed: 

Germany has declared war against Russia.” 

“Germany! Impossible!” cried the countess aghast. “Why 
should Germany declare war? In that Servia affair? It is not her 
quarrel!” 

Miss Davis silently extended a small pink sheet with flaming 
head lines. 

Lady Florence caught it and dropped on the stairs, spreading it 
out before her. Margery, white and trembling, leaned against the 
newel post, and over the countess’ shoulder read the astounding 
scare-heads. 

As the girl’s eyes traveled down the page she recalled strange 
faces, and an under-current of the unusual, during the past few days 


26 


TRAPPED 


in the X. Y. Z. office. Also certain cables which she did not quite 
understand while translating them—though Amos Russell had as¬ 
sured her they were all right. And twice—by mistake—code tele¬ 
grams had passed through her hands. What did it all mean? The 
beautiful entertainments—the presentation at court—the trip to 
Paris,—stunning hats and gowns—seemed to blink out of sight in a 
moment. 

“I—hope we are not going to be drawn into it,” she gasped. 

“The declaration is against Russia, not us,” countered Lady 
Florence. 

“They—they are marching on France—and that country is mob¬ 
ilizing!” Margery pointed to a paragraph in the extra. 

“We have no treaty obligation to support either Russia or France 
in a war—even if it comes to fighting. Which I doubt.” 

Lady Florence had the well-born English woman’s knowledge of 
public questions. At the magic word “war” the foot-man had ceased 
to be an adjunct, and turned a human, eager face to them. 

“War in this century is preposterous.’’ Lady Florence pushed 
the whole idea off impatiently. “I can’t imagine what the Kaiser 
meant by declaring war. The duke told me this morning that the 
King hoped to settle it without a conflict. You know the King, the 
Czar, and the Kaiser are cousins, and fond of each other. The dis¬ 
pute is to be carried to the Hague tribunal.” She smiled wisely at 
the startled faces around her. 

“Yesterday two men were talking about it in the office. I did 
not understand then all they meant. They called it ‘The Austria- 
Servia flurry’, and said the Central Powers were bluffing. But they 
were mistaken—everybody may be mistaken.” Her lips trembled. 
Margery’s life on the continent had not taught her how to follow a 
conversation such as Lord Carnes and Lord Dalhousie loved, but it 
gave her a political insight that realized the situation was ominous. 
Tears filled her eyes. 

“There’ll be no Drawing Rooms, no parties, no anything! I’ve 
inherited nothing from grand-father Lane—except a talent for disap¬ 
pointments.” 

As she spoke the meaning of her words suddenly seemed trivial. 
Then she felt very dizzy, and everything whirled, and grew dark. 

She unsteadily groped for the newel post and slid down beside 
it in a heap on the stairs, covering her face, as she sobbed. After 
a while—it appeared an age to the girl—she was dimly conscious 
of the calm, white vissage of the countess, looking at her in growing 
surprise. 

“Why Margery!” cried Lady Florence cheerfully, putting her 
arm about the girl and patting her comfortingly, “I’m surprised at 
you. You’ve had so many troubles poor child, you expect nothing 
else. You must not. Nobody has to fight because Germany gets 
disagreeable. I see no way of England being drawn into it unless 


TRAPPED 


27 


France of Germany should invade Belgium—and both have promised 
not to do that.” 

“You are sure—both will keep that—promise?” 

Margery sat up—holding limply and inverted, to her nose the 
bottle of smelling salts that Miss Davis had brought—trying to 
shake off the last of the horror that had seized her. Color had fled 
from her countenance, but she felt natural once more. 

“Assuredly they will keep that promise. England of course 
would have to take sides, if—it were violated. There’s little danger 
of either France or Germany invading Belgium. No one will de¬ 
liberately awaken the British bull dog. He is too formidable. Cheer- 
up, little girl.” The countess stroked her red-gold hair tenderly. 
“To-morrow we will go to Westminster Abbey three times, and pray 
for peace.” 

The following day all England prayed for peace. 


CHAPTER VII. 

The Heart of Old England 

The Sunday papers reported that Paris was a cauldron seething 
with madly excited, marching, singing men. But there was the 
usual Sabbath morning calm in London. 

That afternoon, with Margery at the wheel, Lady Florence drove 
from one end of the city to the other. Sleepy London had awakened 
a little, and turned into the streets for processions and peace meet¬ 
ings. Everywhere they ran across enormous crowds carrying ban¬ 
ners and transparencies of every size, expressing the determination to 
avoid war. They found the parks, too, filled with people bearing 
motto-covered standards; and in Trafalgar Square they drove into 
a crowd holding a “Peace-Meeting.” 

Margery stopped the car where they could listen to impassioned 
speeches lauding peace and condemning war. They joined in the 
anthem: “Peace must be preserved.” They echoed the shout of the 
crowd, “England must not go to war!” They joined silently in the 
earnest prayers that were made for, “Peace, peace, peace.” 

In the next open square they found another peace meeting. 
Evidently these gatherings were taking place all over the city. 

The countess was always democratic abroad—as she was in¬ 
formal at home—and leaving the car with Margery, she walked 
through the crowds, and talked with everyone. 

“From the king to the beggar, we are all for peace,” she said, 
when she returned to her ward. “I thank God there is no war 
party in Great Britain.” 

Monday morning, as Margery went to the office, the 


28 


TRAPPED 


streets were as usual. In order to be at her desk before the hour, 
she took a cab—she found the fare had not advanced. 

But to her surprise a guard was stationed at the entrance of the 
X. Y. Z. building. He told her that no one was allowed to enter 
without proper credentials. She had none. Mr. Holt ran up the 
steps behind her, and told the guard to let her pass. He was ex¬ 
plaining, with an air of familiarity that was unneccesary, how 
Margery should get her credentials, when a group of excited foreign¬ 
ers hurried up to them. Mr. Holt could not understand all they 
said, and Maigery interpreted for them. 

“They have been to the embassies, where there is so much ex¬ 
citement that no one can attend to them,” the girl repeated. “They 
found the banks closed, and want to know how they can get checks 
and drafts cashed.” 

Mr. Holt raised his eyebrows. “It’s difficult. Tell them to 
be patient; and things will clear up—and they will get their money. 
There is no danger. Tell them that nothing will happen to them; 
they are safe in England.” 

Margery repeated this; and as the men turned away, still an¬ 
xious, she seized the opportunity to hasten into the corridor, before 
Clarence Holt was aware of her intention. 

“It is very hard” she thought, tripping lightly, “to make him un¬ 
derstand that I don’t want to have any social relations with him.” 

Safe inside the door she glanced back, and saw Amos halted, 
and Holt speaking for him to the guard. 

One of the straws swept by the fear of war, was this young 
man—or rather his plans. 

“I don’t see how I can ask her just now—with both of us so 
busy all the time,” he thought, dismally following Margery into the 
building. “Still I can see her every day,” he comforted himself, 

“and maybe_” His imagination once more in the saddle, he was 

smiling when he hung up his hat. 

That day however, he realized what a terrible thing is war. He 
did not even catch a glimpse of Florence Flemming! For there 
was now no waiting untill eleven o’clock to take her notes to Russell. 
As each telegram was translated at Margery’s desk, a Boy Scout, 
in territorial uniform, signed a receipt for it, and rushed with it to 
the under-secretary. At twelve the following morning Amos made 
an excuse for going into the room where Margery worked. He ex¬ 
perienced positive rapture as she nodded gaily to him. 

“What do you think of it all, Amos?” she asked, unaware that 
his name had slipped from her tongue. 

But it was a red letter day for the boy. 

Margery stayed until afternoon, working busily. The air pul¬ 
sated with excitement. No one knew what an hour—or a moment— 
would bring forth. Before Margery left the building however, it 


TRAPPED 


29 


was known in the foreign office, that GERMANY HAD MARCHED 
INTO BELGIUM, and Belgium would refuse them the right of way. 
Personal telegrams were being freely exchanged by all the crowned- 
heads of the several nations—but Europe was mobilizing. 

As Clarence Holt passed Margery’s desk with a visiting official, 
Margery heard him say: “Since Saturday the king has worked every 
night until 3 a.m. trying to preserve England’s peace and reconcile 
the warring nations. If the break comes it will be the fault of Ger¬ 
many.” 

“We must keep out of it, if we can with honor,” the visitor de¬ 
clared with feeling. “‘The country is less prepared for war than it has 
been in many a long year. I have reason to suspect the Germans 
were more fully informed about our military situation than we knew. 
It is only by God’s mercy that our fleet is not at the uttermost parts 
of the earth. Our army....” 

They passed beyond her hearing, and Margery’s heart sank. She 
tried to recall Lady Florence’s assurance that no one dared to waken 
the British bull-dog. But_ 

Wednesday morning, before the countess was out of bed, Mar¬ 
gery ran into her room with the paper in her hand. 

“Last night, Parliament declared war!” cried the girl. “Oh, I 
knew it would come!” A paroxysm of tearless sobs shook her. That 
sense of impending terror—of emptiness and bitterness—seemed 
again to torment her very soul. 

“England could do no other,” said Lady Florence springing up, 
“After Germany broke her solemn pledge and marched into Belgium. 
England’s conscience is clear. They have forced us into it.” 

Her thin, fine hand shook as she scanned the paper. She un¬ 
consciously read aloud: 

“ ‘The Teutons have set the stage for the most terrible conflict 
of history. England casts her fate with the Allies. The people 
no longer pray for peace, but for victory.’ ” 

She dropped the paper and caught up her dressing gown. She 
might have been an angry sibyl of old, shaking responsibility off 
her skirts. 

“This war will jar the world to its center,” her voice rose above 
its usual key. “The plotting powers have sowed the wind, they 
shall reap the whirlwind. God alone knows when this devil’s work 
shall end; not to-day nor to-morrow. William the second will curse 
the day when he marched into Belgium and forced England to take 
the sword!” 

Margery’s choking terror was shaken loose from her senses by 
the prediction of the excited countess. She could scarcely apprehend 
that this quiet English-woman was wrought to this uncanny degree! 

Lady Florence turning, seemed to see Margery for the first 


30 


TRAPPED 


time. The rigor of her face relaxed into a brave effort to smile. 

“There, there, child!” she touched Margery comfortingly. “Pm 
a silly old woman who—lost—a dear—cousin—in the last conflict; and 
I know what war means for women here—and over there.” She bent 
and kissed the girl gently. “I’ll see you have some pleasures, war or 
no war. We are never young but once. Run down to breakfast. 
It wont do to be late at the office these days. Please, tell Miss 
Davis to come to me at once.” 

That day at the office was even more strained and exciting 
than the preceding ones. Life everywhere was changing. 

The following morning Lady Florence appeared at the breakfast 
table wearing her hat. 

“I am to consult Clarence Holt this morning about accepting 
a fine estate near the coast, that has been offered for a convales- 
ence hospital. Then I must report at the palace. If I waited un¬ 
till eleven could you go with me?” 

“Not to-day,” regretted Margery. “Mr. Holt asked me to stay 
until four all this week. But has the Queen given you this to do?” 

Lady Florence smiled assent. “And my hands are crowded 
with committees,” she added. “I shall be about the busiest person 
in the United Kingdom.” 

“The Queen has recognized your executive ability, your experi¬ 
ence, judgement, and your tact,” said Margery warmly. 

“The Queen.—and all the royal family—are busy, too,” the count¬ 
ess answered. “I’ll take you to your office in my car.” 

A week later all classes were working. She who accomplished 
most, was most honored. As Lady Florence and Margery spun down 
the street one afternoon, the older woman pointed out what was going 
on in the houses of the governing class. Accomplished seamstresses 
were working in this grand home; in the one across the street friends 
assembled and sewed for the men at the front. Women were pouring 
into a large guild-hall as they passed, where—Lady Florence explain¬ 
ed—they were being trained by experts for war work. 

As Margery returned home the next afternoon, she made a de¬ 
tour of one of the parks. It was recreation hour, but thousands 
were knitting. As she passed an amusement hall, numbers of the 
women coming out, were stuffing the beginning of sweaters and 
wristlets into their bags. She dropped into a store for a purchase, 
and was interested to find the clerks, who were not waiting upon 
customers, were sewing or knitting. 

She found the duke taking tea with Lady Florence. He compli¬ 
mented the girl warmly upon “doing her bit” for the government. 
It someway sounded very queer to Margery. Yet he seemed sin¬ 
cere in his warm praise. 

“A law may be passed,” he observed causally, “that will pre¬ 
vent rent being collected while war lasts—and this might ef- 


TRAPPED 


31 


feet our agreement—with the American tenant, you see. So don’t 
resign.” 

“I knew the war would stop all my plans,” the girl thought 
gloomily. 

But her spirits rallied when Lady Florence took her to a re¬ 
ception that evening. Her employment was made a high feather 
in her cap; though, of course, no one dreamed it was not war duty. 

As Lady Florence presented her to a distinguished general, she 
remarked, “My little friend here is using her talents in translating 
telegrams and letters from nearly all parts of Europe. She was 
formerly a student in the School of Arts and Sciences, and is wonder¬ 
fully proficient in languages.” ’ 

Margery blushed guiltily, as the General complimented her glow¬ 
ingly on the example she was setting others. And he attributed 
her color to nobleness of soul, which resents praise for the perfor¬ 
mance of duty. While the girl wished he were a young man, with no 
decorations at all, lost in admiration of her eyes, and not her work in 
the, X. Y. Z. office. 

“It has been a long time” she thought wistfully, “since a good- 
looking youth has said anything really nice to me. And now with 
their minds filled with war and the glory of going ‘over there’ I 
don’t believe any of them have time for—for love.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

A Page From the Past. 

On returning home the next day, Margery found that Lady Flo¬ 
rence had taken a hasty luncheon and gone on an important mission, 
and would not be back until late.. The girl knew exactly what to 
expect. She was to dine with Miss Davis and spend a lonely even¬ 
ing. But one thought of the “School of Arts and Sciences” recon¬ 
ciled her. 

“Anyhow I can comb my hair becomingly and wear a pretty 
gown;” and she remembered with satisfaction the big mirror, with 
its tarnished gilt frame, in the housekeeper’s sitting room. 

Margery was reading the afternoon paper when the servant 
entered and announced dinner; so she carried the sheet with her, 
to read aloud to Miss Davis—who occupied a rather unusual position 
in the household. 

“ ‘Leige has fallen, and the enemy is nearing Louvaine,’ ” read 
Margery. 

“For mercy’s sake!” exclaimed Miss Davis in an irritated tone. 
“Why don’t France and England send troops to help Belgium, in¬ 
stead of trying to go into Alsace? The papers say Belgium has 


32 


TRAPPED 


saved Europe. Are they going to allow Germany to over-run the 
whole country without lifting a finger to prevent it?” 

Margery came valiantly to the support of the government. 

“Certainly not. They are rushing troops there now. But it 
takes a long time to move an army.” 

“It did not take Germany twenty-four hours—after declaring 
war—to reach Leige,” stated Miss Davis laconically. 

Margery gazed at her incredously. 

“Then they must have started before the declaration. No, 
they couldn’t have done that; for Germany began the row because 
Russia was going to mobilize. So of course Germany wouldn’t have 
done the same thing against Belgium and France.” 

Both shook their heads solemnly, and in silence ate their fish. 
The way of the war-lords was past finding out to the two women 
whose chief source of information was the newspapers; for Margery 
had long since trained her mind to eliminate all knowledge gained 
at the X. Y. Z. office from her conversation. If she possessed “in¬ 
side light” no inkling of it ever escaped her. 

“What I don’t understand,” said the girl, taking up the Post 
as her plate was removed, “is that the papers, in big head-lines, 
always proclaim English and French victories, and yet—all the 
time—the Germans are steadily advancing.” 

Again they shook their heads ominously, though without at¬ 
tempting to solve the riddle. 

“And it looks as if nothing can stop them.” 

“It does,” Miss Davis agreed dismally. 

Again silence fell between them. Each brain was filled with 
its own thoughts, until Margery taking up the paper and glancing 
down another column read: 

“ ‘There have been many brave deeds, but the carnage has been 
terrible.’ ” 

“Yes, yes,” sighed Miss Davis becoming agitated, “so it was in 
the other war.” 

“Oh, this is horrible!” cried the girl, who had been reading and 
had not heard what was said. “ ‘Twenty-five thousand men killed in 
one day.’ ” 

Miss Davis with nervous fingers folded her napkin, to indicate 
she wished no more dinner; though the meal was only half finished, 
and she usually had a good oppetite. 

“Think of the women and children left to mourn for them!” she 
breathed in a shaky voice, while her hand trembled as she lifted a 
glass of water to her lips. “Each of these men had some one who 
loved....” 

To Margery’s surprise Miss Davis snatched up her napkin, and 
burying her face in it, wept bitterly. Awed by the sudden emotion 


TRAPPED 


33 


of one usually so coldly calm, and feeling it imperative to say some¬ 
thing expressing sympathy, she exclaimed: 

“Oh! I think it is terrible!” 

“Think! Think! I don’t think; I know.” cried the elder woman 
between sobs. “When the war in South Africa began I was a girl 
not very much older than you are, and—and Howard thought me 
beautiful too; though he may have been partial.” She fumbled in 
her reticule for a handkerchief, blew her nose, and with her elbows 
resting on the table wiped first one eye and then the other. “My 
hair was then as black as night, and I had plenty of it too. I wore 
it fringed and piled high on my head,’’ she added; while Margery 
listened in wide-eyed amazement. 

To the girl the housekeeper had always appeared an old, 
woman—one whose life had been lived long ago. That her hair had 
been prematurely whitened by the same sorrow that blasted her 
hopes, or that she had ever had a romance, seemed quite impossible. 

“Howard wanted to be married before he left,” she continued, 
“so that I might go with him. But we were poor....” She paused 
to stifle a sob and. wipe her eyes. 

“Always a lack of money!” thought Margery in consternation, 
and then with bitterness. 

“The climate was bad, and my younger brothers and sisters 
needed me to look after them 1 . 1S0 father—an impecuneous clergyman 
—thought we’d better wait until after the war!” Another pause. 
“But he never came back. He was fatally shot leading a charge, the 
same day that Lady Florence’s first sweetheart was killed 1 —at least 
he died from the effect of the wound 1 , through the lack of proper at¬ 
tention. It was then that the countess and I became friends. After 
father’s death she offered me this position of companion—house¬ 
keeper.” Another catch in her voice. “And for which I am most 
grateful; it being exceedingly difficult for a lady to find agreeable 
employment.” 

They were dining in the housekeeper’s little den, a combina¬ 
tion sitting room and boudoir. Miss Davis, taking a key from her 
watch chain, unlocked a tiny desk on her writing table, and drew 
out her treasures. They were carefully wrapped in oilskin and 
cotton batting; and as Margery rose to follow her, in the mirror, 
she saw the constant soul, reverently kiss the packet before loosening 
the faded ribbon with which it was tied. Nothing in the girl’s 
life had ever before touched her so deeply. She felt herself in the 
presence of a tragedy worse than death. At the time the emotion 
was incomprehensible. It was not until long afterwards that Mar¬ 
gery realized she was even then dimly thinking: “In the din of 
battle almost any man might do a brave deed or die heroically. But 
to live for years—dressing and looking as if she were seventy when 


34 


TRAPPED 


not yet fifty, and doing one's daily task well and without complaint 
—after hope was dead— Why that was heroic.” 

“This is his picture,” said Miss Davis with a crack in her voice. 

Margery—feeling as if the dead were present—took the time- 
dimmed photograph and gazed at it silently, almost reverently. 

“And this is the one of me he carried with him; though at the 
time he insisted that it did me but faint justice.” 

At the recollection of her exhibition of vanity in repeating the 
long dead praise, pale color crept into her stained cheeks. 

“And you were like this when you parted?” asked Margery very 
gently, her sentiments divided between astonishment and sympathy, 
as she looked from the oil tinted photo of a beautiful, baby-faced girl, 
in a modish gown; to the washed-out, withered, woman, who claimed 
to be the original. 

“He is in Heaven waiting for me,” continued the spinster, her tone 
attesting her absolute faith. “When I die he will welcome me.” 

“How will he recognize you?”' wondered the girl aloud. Then 
she could have slapped her thoughtless lips for asking the question, 
as she saw the patient, heart-hungry woman gasp, turn white, and 
catch at a chair, appalled by the implied suggestion. For an aw¬ 
ful moment the two souls stared at each other in frightened silence. 
Then, with a relieved sigh, Miss Davis said: 

“Oh, we will be angels then! I shall again be beautiful. And” 
confidently, “we shall know each other.” 

“Of course you will,” affirmed Margery positively. And then 
added encouragingly, “I had forgotten about the angel part.” 

Suddenly the girl thought of her own secret hopes. Since her 
mother’s death her one fixed idea of escape from poverty had been 
matrimony. Her day dream usually began with her passing down the 
aisle of a church, dragging a satin train, carrying flowers, and en¬ 
veloped in a cloud of tule, to meet at the alter—a man—Who-Was-To- 
Give-Her-Everything. Not to marry, meant continual economy—the 
synonym of misery. May be worse—scrawniness, unpopularity, and 
it might come—in her case—to living with relatives who detested 
her! A very mid-Victorian conception—but a very real and disagree¬ 
able one. As; she watched! the prematurely aged! woman restore “the 
mementoes of a long dead past to their abiding place,” she looked 
down the vista of years into the abyss of “every vestagb of beauty 
gone,” and felt goosebumps of apprehension. 


TRAPPED 


35 


CHAPTER IX. 

“The Best Laid Plans”. 

Margery Keblinger moved enough to place the office table be¬ 
tween herself and the young man who had—unexpectedly—asked her 
to be his wife. For a moment she was too startled to speak. Her 
sole feeling was that of intense resentment. How dared he—a nobody 
—presume to suggest such a thing to her—the great neice of a duke! 
True, he did not know—but he should have felt her superiority. There 
was nothing wrong about Amos loving her—that was merely a tribute 
to her beauty; but it was unpardonably humiliating to have him admit 
—-worse—materialize it into spoken words. What would the countess 
think, if she knew! When she looked down the rose pink crept into 
her delicate cheeks, as Russell had anticipated; and while she hesi¬ 
tated, he impetuously stammered his pent up love. But instead of 
the quick, shy glance he had pictured, she turned upon him with 
blazing eyes. He stopped suddenly as though shot. 

“I—I am too amazed to know—what to say. I never dreamed— 
that—that you imagined I cared—or that you. ... ” 

“You must have known for weeks that I loved you. A girl al¬ 
ways knows,” he suggested bluntly. “Your manner led me to be¬ 
lieve that you were not—indifferent....” 

“I have never given you any encouragement,” Margery interrupt¬ 
ed positively, her flush increasing at the implied accusation. She was 
more angry with herself than Russell, and this augmented hetr un¬ 
reasonableness. “I am not to blame if your egotism misinterptered 
mere courtesy. I have treated you precisely as I treat—all other 
men.” 

“You treat all other men then, very —cordially.” 

“You should remember that our acquaintance is on a strictly 
business footing.” 

Had she been less furious with herself, she would have been 
kinder to him. But her conscience was taunting her with the fact 
that it was she who had broken over the “strictly business footing,” 
and of the imagined horror in Lady Florence’s eyes if she had wit¬ 
nessed the “breaking over.” 

“If this is the result of trying to make things pleasant— she 
faltered, a quaver in her tone at being placed upon the defensive, 
“why of course-” 

She paused and counted the six stripes m the rug before Russell s 
desk. Being disagreeable—particularly to a good-looking young man 
who wanted to make love to her—was contrary to her nature. She 
preferred to be charming. Surely she had said enough to convince mm 
that there must be no more— misunderstandings. She slowly raised 


36 


TRAPPED 


rougish eyes of his. “Please say no more about it—and Ill forgive 
you the foolish idea.” 

Her frivolous glance changed, as she met Amos Russell's grave 
face. She saw he realized that she was trying to cover her coquetry 
by throwing the blame on him. Worse—he was feeling that it was 
unthinkable that a girl who looked as if she were fresh from Paradise 
could do so cruel a thing. Never before in any of her —little affairs 
—had a lover six feet tall, with a firm chin, looked at her as if un¬ 
able to believe his ears, as he compared her words, with the contra¬ 
dictory images that his memory brought before him. 

Margery’s sense of humiliation was like a stab. 

“I’d rather be beaten than stared at as if I—I were a bug under 
a microscope!” She squired inwardly, trying to think of something 
clever to say, or do, that would end the situation. 

The long pause stiffened into a terrible silence. 

“I'll say something to make him jealous,” she thought—a little 
wildly. “Then he will be glad to be any kind of friends with me.” 

“Of course I am going to marry some day—when a young man, 
who has money, good-looks, and a title, wants me.” She balanced 
herself from little toes to heels, then back again, and glanced saucily 
from the corners of her mischievous eyes. 

“You are ambitious,” he returned bitterly. 

Margery could think of nothing at all to say. Still with the 
intention of teasing him into a good humor, she laughed at him a 
little; fixed her eyes on a distant map; and unmistakably shrugged 
her shoulders. 

Along with Amos Russell’s gentleness was a very quick temper— 
usually under control, but at times volcanic. He construed her shrug 
as expressing contempt. He flushed hotly, clenching his hands spas¬ 
modically, in his effort to keep from voicing his indignation. 

Margery, perceiving his rising color, regretted the shrug. She 
really wished to smooth the matter out. Her chaotic thoughts flew 
in every direction searching for something to give the conversation a 
pleasant twist that would rid the handsome steel-gray eyes of their 
unwonted sternness. She vaguely felt that she would be willing to 
exchange a wee bit of her adored beauty for wit enough to handle 
this case gracefully. 

“Oh, why can’t I think of something?” she asked herself with 
inward perturbation. “Just anything would be better than simply 
staring at each other.” A frown puckered her brow. Then it cleared. 
Her frantic quest had let to Oakhurst—free from debt, an assured 
income, and all the accompanying joys—a true cause for happiness. 

“Of course,” she reasoned to herself, “I can’t mention the place 
or circumstances; but I’ll just ramble on, talking pleasantly of it and 
any thing else that pops into my mind, and so give his anger time to 
cool. She smiled enchantingly, and, for the thousandth part of a 
second, glanced up and met Russell’s gaze 1 —still fathomless with 


TRAPPED 


37 


mingled surprise, disappointment, and an added flare of anger Then 
she hastily looked down. 

Never had she seemed more alluring, or so entirely desirable, to 
the boy, than as she stood there—the finger of one hand resting 
lightiy on the table, while with the other she waved the whole dis¬ 
agreeable subject from her, as in the blandest of tones she cooed: 

“Please believe me when I tell you that things will not always 
remain as they now appear.” She smiled archly, nodding to accen¬ 
tuate each statement. “Life in a big city like London is exceedingly 
complex. I can’t explain fully, or you’d discern exactly what I 
mean.” 

With his eyes drinking in her fatal charms, he waited, while 
hope—unbidden and with no cause for doing so—rose in his breast; 
only to be blasted by her next sentence. 

“But you do know that you are young, very young.” Amos felt 
an inward consuming heat. “And, naturally, don’t understand these 
things now, as you will later.” 

Had she again glanced up, she would have realized that she was 
pouring oil on slumbering embers, not stormy waters. 

“Therefore, as I said before, I am going to excuse your—your—” 
She hesitated, and looked out of the window in order to avoid his 
eyes, before adding hastily, “Your-little-mistake-of-this-morning; for 
I’m sure it will never be repeated.” To herself she communed; “I’m 
obliged to have that point well settled, before making friends with 
him.” 

By not meeting his gaze she failed to observe that the fire in 
Russell’s dark eyes, was emitting sparks. 

“I—I hope everything will go on hereafter just is if—as if it 
had never never happened.” 

The tumult in the boy’s brain increased, as she—in the voice of 
one calming an angry or unreasonable child—erased his hopes from 
existence, as though they were indeed the stuff of which dreams were 
made, and utterly fatuous—when to him they meant more than life 
itself. He felt the world—his world—slipping from beneath him. 
He grasped the edge of his desk firmly, and in the cataclysm stood 
erect and motionless, as his elaborately constructed air-castles fell 
in shattered heaps about him. 

The process elected by Margery to quell the tempest in the breast 
of Amos worked perfectly in her own case. Her emotions were soon 
quieted by her soft rythmics. She had almost forgiven his imper¬ 
tinence. When on the continent with her mother, twirling forlorn 
lovers around her fingers, was one of her principle amusements— 
and accomplishments. Russell was crude, and a little hard to deal 
with; but he’d come around all right after a little drubbing! Her 
mind wandered. It was difficult for her to concentrate long upon 
anything that did not vitally involve her own happiness. Momentar¬ 
ily forgetting the “soothing ramble” on which she was bent, and only 


38 


TRAPPED 


remembering her intention of talking amiably for an indefinite per¬ 
iod; unconsciously her thoughts reverted to her own beautiful am¬ 
bitions—the most interesting and important of topics, from her per¬ 
sonal point of view. 

Through the agony of his heart-break the boy heard her glee¬ 
fully anounce: 

“And when this dreadful old war is ended, and all the distin¬ 
guished young officers return, I shall... 

“When this horrible war is over,” interrupted Amos passionately, 
—goaded to fury by her indifference and the mention of future rivals, 
—“there will be one million old maids in Europe! And—and you— 
you possibly, may be one of them.” 

He had struck home! Had it been a literal blow in the face the 
girl would not have been more dumbfounded. Her dying indigna¬ 
tion flamed a fiery banner in her cheeks. How dare he—an employee 
—or any man living—say such a thing to her? 

“Indeed I will not,” she flashed back. You are not the only 
man. 

Amos inhaled a quick breath. He realized she was more beauti¬ 
ful when angry than when smiling. That splendid color in her face, 
the courage in her eyes, were naive, passionate, and adorable. He 
worshiped her while she scorned. 

“There are other men who wish to marry me now.’” She tossed 
the answer back like a triumphant child. “And soon....” 

“There were other men last month—last week,” he gasped fur¬ 
iously. The consciousness that other men loved her stirred him to 
white heat. “But they have gone to war—and—and—many I fear 
—will never come back.” 

The solemn, regretful cadence in his tone, changing it so sud¬ 
denly from anger to prophecy, as he reluctantly pronounced their 
doom, caused the remark to shiver through Margery’s heat like 
blighting ice. And though he hesitated—his agitation causing his 
voice to vibrate—he hurled the words with a force that made them 
not only a threat but a reality. 

Pale, wide-eyed, she caught her breath, as her frozen hopes ech¬ 
oed “They have all gone to war—and will never come back!” She 
had obscurely felt this in her disappointment at giving up all “her 
plans.” But to have the truth flung at her so brutally, cut deeper 
than Russell guessed. The terror, however, in her dark eyes checked 
him abruptly. He realized that he had lost his temper. And it gave 
him no pleasure to make her suffer—though she had been cruel. He 
started, impulsively, to retract all that he had said. But Margery 
was too quick for him. The fright in her eyes changed to defiance. 
He had wounded her, deeply, she must retaliate. Too angry to weigh 
her words, she whirled at him something that would hurt—and des¬ 
perately. 

“The best men, the bravest, are volunteering; and thousands will 



TRAPPED 


39 


never come back,” she stopped to clear her throat of tears. With a 
contemptuous sweep of her lashes that left no doubt of her taunt, 
she continued, “only old men, little boys,,—and the cowardly will be 
left.” 

The young man turned red—then white as he grasped the full 
meaning of her jibe. 

With her hand on the knob of the door, and her chin up, she shot 
her final bolt. “There are worse things, Mr. Russell, than being an 
old maid! Adieu.” 

As the door closed, Amos fell into a chair. He was white as 
ashes. 

“I was rude to her—the girl I love. I am a fool!” Then a 
second fiery thought darted through him. “She has a contempt for 
me—she thinks that I am a coward!” 

Margery bolted into the cloak room, and sank on the over-shoes 
stool for the comfort of tears. “Calling me ‘old maid!” she wept, 
raising her eyes to the small mirror for contradiction of such a libel. 
She stopped crying instantly. “I—I’m a wreck—my nose red, and my 
hair to pieces. I’ll never forgive him for making me look like this! 
To-morrow he will want us to be friends! And he’ll apologize.” She 
fumbled for her beauty box and “fixed” her lids, and straightened 
the flying love locks. “I’ll be very dignified when he wants me—to— 
to say everything will be just the same. When he says he is sorry— 
and begs me—I suppose—I’ll forgive him. But saying I’d be an old 
maid! I should never have had anything to do with him. Lady 
Florence is right. Lady Florence is right! It does not pay to be on 
pleasant terms—with inferiors.—But I—I will have to be nice—when 
—when he apologizes. A lady always accepts an apology. And—” 
she continued, naively, settling her hat on her head, “I said—may 
be— a few nasty things, myself.” 


CHAPTER X. 

The Jest. 

“I wish we were busier than at the beginning of the war,” Amos 
thought, plunging restlessly about his office. Then he saw a pile of 
mail awaiting his attention on the desk. “I had entirely forgotten 
this,” he said aloud impatiently. “My brain must be addled.” 

The letters were soon on their various files, but a pamphlet re¬ 
quired more time. Beneath his activity, like and under-current, ran a 
single thought: “You told her! She refused you! Florence Flem¬ 
ming sent you about your business. Then you said outrageous things 
to her!” 

He answered the accusation: “I was a brute—I’d die for her— 
Why did I do it? I’ll apologize—” 


40 


TRAPPED 


Here he remembered her terrible Parthian shot. It burned to 
his soul. Each time that he recalled it, it seemed to scorch him 
deeper. 

“She thinks me a coward,” he breathed between clinched teeth. 
“I’ll make her take it back—if I can’t make her love me.” 

It did not occur to him that Margery had deliberately ensnared 
his interest to gratify her vanity. If he had not been torn with re¬ 
morse for making accusations that he should not have voiced, he might 
have realized the true situation. He was on the road to this 
understanding at the beginning of the conversation. He had de¬ 
duced that she must have known of his love, and was surprised that 
she should pretend that she did not know. Before, however, he 
reached the next stage of the truth—that she had played for his 
love—they had quarreled—and she had set the white-hot brand of 
cowardice on her estimation of him. This quivering shame—and the 
disappointment that she did not love him—had eaten up all other 
aspects of the affair—except his real regret that he had been ugly 
to a woman—and she the girl he loved. 

The door opened, and Margery—encased in a zero atmosphere— 
came in with the translations. Something in Amos jerked and then 
stood still, as he took in her frozen air and face. He had no idea this 
frigidity was intended to punish him, and to provoke an apology. 
He simply felt that the gulf yawned between them deeper than when 
they parted the day before. Yet he would have stuttered out some¬ 
thing, had not a clerk entered immediately behind Margery. His in¬ 
tense reserve would not—at the moment—have permitted him to 
speak before another, if his life had been the forfeit. 

With her chin up, and her eyes down, she laid her morning’s work 
on the table before Amos, and abstractedly looked out of the window. 

Mechanically the boy pushed the already signed slips across the 
table to her; and stood very erect as she, in perfect silence, picked 
up the receipts, and with an almost imperceptible nod, left the room. 
It was all over in thirty seconds. 

Through the tumult of Amos Russell’s emotions only one thing 
stood clear: 

“She has a contempt for me! She doesn’t want me to get near 
enough to her to apologize. But I should have done it anyhow—and 
I will next time. She despises me! But I am going to do some¬ 
thing to win her respect. I will. I will!” 

Margery sniffed a little in the corridor—but she had not time 
to weep in the cloak room. She was more angry than hurt. 

“I entered his office to make friends—and forget. He didn’t 
even speak to me.” She dashed her handkerchief to her eyes. “Think 
of staying in a temper for twenty-four hours! If he had been a 
prince of the blood, he couldi not have been sitiffer.” 

The following morning there was a lull in her work, and she 
had a few moments for retrospection. 


TRAPPED 


41 


“I wish I did not have to go his old room,” she pouted, as the 
clock warned of the nearness of the hour when the translations must 
be delivered to Amos Russell. 'She felt about as comfortable as a 
butterfly caught in a jar of honey. Against her mental protest her 
conscience was telling her that she deserved to suffer in Russell's 
presence. 

To escape these feelings she turned to a youthful group of her 
associates, who were gaily eating sandwicehs. For the declaration of 
war had somehow placed Margery on different terms with her fellow- 
workers. Democracy was not only in the air, but was being breathed 
and absorbed. She would have been even more friendly with Russell 
than formerly—if he had not trodden on the supreme ambition. He 
had offended because he had not perceived that she was destined to 
be a wife of one of the elect. Margery joined the girls, armed with 
her own sandwiches. 

“And what do you think they did?” one of them was saying to the 
others, as Margery neared them. With a ripple of laughter she con¬ 
tinued : 

“Each girl wrote her family that she was married to a traveling 
man, a drummer, they call them in the United States. There are un¬ 
told numbers of them there, you know. They gave their husband's 
names—and where they were from—and everything. Both families 
sent them presents, and money for their trousseaux. They were not 
married—at all, you know. But they took a trip, and had a fine time 
with their new clothes. Then they engaged a flat together. One 
called herself Mrs. Brown, and the other Mrs. Rogers; and nobody— 
not even the clerks in the store where they worked—knew they were 
not married. After a while one got news that her husband was 
dead. She went away—everyone suDposed to her husband’s funeral— 
and came back in deep mourning. After while the other did the same 
—and everybody thought they were widows. Now, wasn't that a 
clever joke, for two girls not twenty-five years old to play on the 
public?” 

“What made them do it?” asked some one. 

“Because it made them as independent as wood-choppers. You 

know widows can do anything-” the girl ran on. “They don't 

have to bother about chaperons. And men think them fascinating.” 

“I wish I’d been born a widow!” sighed, and then giggled, one of 
the litseners. 

“Were their parents angry when they found it out?” 

“Possibly. But they were obliged to laugh. That’s the charm of 
a joke. It puts everybody in a good humor. Nobody was hurt by 
it; and in the end they were forgiven-and-”. 

This coarse story was the nucleus of Margery's gigantic mistake. 
Her eyes fell on the clodc. She could not waste another minute. 



42 


TRAPPED 


Reluctantly she picked up her bundle of papers, and walked rapidly 
down the hall, thinking: 

“If I could play a joke on Amos and he’d laugh heartily over it 
just once, why—of course he couldn’t stay angry any longer. Then 
we’d be friends once more, and everything as it was before—before he 
forgot himself. I’m sure he’ll never do that again.” 

She slackened her pace. 

“Amos is taking it too seriously anyhow. And he loves a joke.” 
She chuckled softly, as she recalled a very amusing anecdote he had 
told her the day before that of—his “audacious behavior.” 

“If I could only think of something really funny, I’d do it. I’m 
going to buy a book on ‘Jokes’ and see if I can’t find one to use on 
him. I’ll get it to-day, and try it to-morrow.” 

So filled was she with the joy of the peace-maker she was going 
to engage, that she gave a little skip, and her smile once more eddied 
into dimples, as she noiselessly entered the open door. 

Amos and a handsome man in uniform were bending over a map 
spread on the table, and did not hear her enter. The officer dropped 
a tiny flag and stooped to pick it up, so was—for the moment—out of 
the line of Margery’s vision behind Russell’s high desk. Margery had 
instructions to place the translations in the hands of the under-sec¬ 
retary. They were too important to be laid just any where. She was 
also pleased to find that he was alone. 

“What shall I do with these?” she asked appealingly, letting a 
smile and the audacious sweep of her lashes rest on Amos as of old; 
and then she looked down. Both men straightened as she spoke, 
Russell drew a quick breath as he met her eyes. He recognized her 
radiance, and saw the color and dimples peeping in her cheeks, and an 
indescribable joy ran through him. 

“I beg” be began quickly. “I beg your pardon Miss_” he 

hesitated, feeling that the presence of the officer demanded “Miss 
Flemming,” but thinking that Margery might interpret it as coldness 
—and he was trembling for fear he would not say the right thing. 

Ini the thousandth part of a second, while she looked down and 
he hesitated, a wonderful, ready-made-and'-warranted-to-work-well, 
joke popped suddenly into Margery’s mind. There was no use wait¬ 
ing to buy the book. 

“I’ll correct the fib in a moment,” she promised herself; for she 
was almost giggling, as she thought to herself how extraordinarily 
funny her prank would prove—how Amos would roar with laughter 
when she told him the truth. In this expected laugh she saw the 
frozen expanse between them melting into friendship. 

“Not Miss at all,” the perfect lips smiled, while the bronze lashes 
shaded her cheeks, “but Mrs.” The spirit of Mischief whispered: 
“You hope to marry—call yourself Hope.” 

Mrs. Hope,” she completed demurely. She dared not look up for 
fear she would grin at once and spoil the joke. As Amos said nothing, 


TRAPPED 


43 


she added sweetly: “I thought you might have heard of my mar¬ 
riage.” 

As the stupendous lie escaped her lips, she blushed rosily—just 
as a bride might be expected to blush. 

She saw Russell’s hand clutch the side of the desk. 

“Mrs. Hope,” he peated dully. “Do you mean you are Mrs. 
Hope?” 

“Yes, that is what I mean.” She pinched herself hard, as she 
thought, “I’ll tell him it’s a joke, in a second.” 

To the stunned boy her tone triumphantly indicated: “Not ex¬ 
actly an old maid!” 

Her sideward glance as it slowly traveled up, fell on the smiling 
face of the young officer—whom she now saw for the first time. 
With a gasp—and a little frightened 1 —she turned quickly, and looked 
straight into the eyes of Amos Russell. 

She felt her heart contract at his ashey face—at the queer an¬ 
guish in his eyes. 

She was flippant, but not cruel. (She regretted the untruth in¬ 
stantly. Then too, it had fallen so flat—though immediate ex¬ 
planation would be flatter. The humor of the thing was suddenly 
gone. It was not funny, but impertinent. She could not meet the 
fathomless gaze Amos fixed on her. “I—I must explain at once,” 
she trembled. “I could do it so much better if that officer were not 
here.” She was growing panicy. “But I—I must do it anyhow,” 
she was nervously thinking, when Russell’s hand shot out to her. 

“I wish you every possible happiness,” he said solemnly, tend¬ 
erly. “No one could be more sincere than I am in wishing you this.” 

The keen gray eyes of his darkened, then filmed 1 ; with a grip of 
her hand—-that almost made her scream. 

She was transfixed, taken off her guard, reduced from bubbling 
humor—to a sense of silly embarrassment. Before she could grasp 
the situation, Amos pushed the signed slips across the map of Europe 
to her, and took up the package she had brought. 

The incident was closed. 

With a startled glance at the soldierly forn, about to take a con¬ 
gratulatory curve towards her, she left the room with a hasty, “Good¬ 
morning.” 

“A deuced pretty woman!” exclaimed, the officer, carefully 
measuring the distance between two points. “One of these war- 
brides. The men going to the front are marrying like the devil. Her 
husband has my sympathy, poor beggar! I’d hate to leave her to 
face the Huns.” He pierced the map with an English flag. “Here’s 
where they pressed us back yesterday. This retreat is getting on my 
nerves. We need men at the front. They are volunteering too 
slowly.” 

As Margery hurried through the corridor, blind with furious 
tears, she bumped against a tall, ministerial-looking man, distri- 


44 


TRAPPED 


buting cards of some kind. She took the paper he extended, and stood 
blinking at it, trying to gain control of herself before passing to her 
desk. The words on it flared at her: “Every idle word that men 
shall speak they shall give account thereof, in the day of judgement.” 

She felt a sense of inner strangulation envelop her—an awful 
lonliness—and just before a fiery horror: It was stronger—more 
poignant—than when it seized her over the extra by Lady Florence’s 
side. She reeled to a seat near a window, and sank down blindly, ha¬ 
ting and reproaching herself with furious condemnation. 


CHAPTER XI. 

Lord Carnes Throws Down an Astounding Challenge. 

That morning Lord Dalhousie had received a telegram from Lord 
Carnes. He wanted Dalhousie to meet him at Dover and journey 
with him to London. 

Lord Dalhousie took the first train to Dover, and found his old 
friend awaiting him. 

“I am just from Paris and Belgium ,” Lord Carnes began abrupt¬ 
ly, “w’here I have wasted two precious weeks. Let’s get a private 
compartment so we can talk as we go to London.” 

As their train started. Lord Dalhousie settled himself with the 
Eiglishman’s idea of getting all the comfort possible out of the hour’s 
ride. He noticed, however, that his friend, pale, with dark shadows 
under his eyes, sat tense and upright. Evidently his health had not 
been improved by the six months in Baden Baden. 

“Are you too tired to talk business?” asked Lord Carnes. 

Lord Dalhousie, as lithe as when they played cricket at Eton, 
answered with a touch of annoyance, “I am never tired, Robert. But 
I am afraid you are feeling the strain of this war.” 

Lord Carnes closed his eyes wearily, for a moment. 

“It is a thousand pities that England had to be drawn into it. 
But after Germany tore up ‘her scrap of paper’ and marched into 
Belgium, nothing else was—honorably—possible.” 

“Do you remember our last conversation?” asked Lord Carnes, 
opening his eyes and looking searchingly at his friend. 

“Perfectly.” 

“I was wrong in supposing the world was ready for arbitration 
—or the ‘Higher Life’ here on earth. I know now that it will re¬ 
quire decades to reach that height. That I was mistaken, had been 
clearly pointed out to me. But I was arrogant and would not be¬ 
lieve. I over-estimated conditions.” He rubbed his hand across his 
brow as if he would erase some memory. “Had I only trusted—in¬ 
formation—I received months ago, this war might have been averted. 
I was told—many times—but I would not believe until it was too late.” 


TRAPPED 


45 


His unhappy eyes looked past his companion/* What governments were 
preparing to do was laid before me. Conversations were repeated 
to me—what purported to be copies of telegrams exchanged between 
the powers—sometimes in code and translated, but oftener the ori¬ 
ginals, were put before me, Dalhousie. But I considered the source 
of the information untrustworthy.” 

“Nothing could have prevented this war,” asserted Dalhousie, 
glancing anxiously at the care-worn face of his friend, “except wiping 
Germany off the map. We are not ready. Our real army won’t be 
ready before spring....” 

“The war must be over before then,” affirmed Lord Carnes 
calmly. 

“Over!” gasped Dalhousie. Was his friend’s mind shaking under 
ill health and the war excitement? The serenity of the calm eyes, 
however, that turned on him, reassured him. “According to Kit¬ 
chener it will just begin in the spring.” 

“Lord Kitchener does not know everything,” interrupted Carnes. 
“I sent for you because I want you to stop the war.” 

“You want me to stop the war!” exclaimed Dalhousie, again 
looking keenly at Carnes. ‘‘You might as well ask me to stop a bloom¬ 
ing cyclone. Nothing can stop it now.” 

“You are mistaken.” 

“Germany is not going to cry “enough” as long as she can put an 
army in the field. She claims to have six million men. She really 
has about nine million. We can’t withdraw until Germany gives in. 
The indestructible has met the—other thing—in physics. So there 
we are! It spells ‘Ruin’ to our present Europe, whichever side wins. 
If we win, however, we will extend democracy to the world. There 
is nothing to do but to see the thing through!” 

“Yes, there is something else to do,” contradicted Carnes, his 
eyes glowing with a light incomprehensible to his companion. Yet 
he—Dalhousie—felt it was not insanity. “And to do it, I have come 
to England. In less than a month Germany will realize she is fight¬ 
ing a losing game, and she will capitulate before she is ruined. Much 
of Belgium has been destroyed. That can’t be undone. Part of 
France is devastated—and must be won back. The world must be 
saved from German militarism.” 

“But how? In a month? Impossible. The government and Lord 
Kitchener.... ” * 

“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings cometh wisdom,” 
incorrectly quoted the invalid softly. 

“Talk sense,”—Dalhousie began impatiently. 

“All I ask of you,” interrupted Lord Carnes, “is to be a witness. 
I don’t ask faith. When peace is declared I want you to tell what 
you know has happened—what is true.” 

He stopped Dalhousie as he started to speak. 


46 


TRAPPED 


“I warn you beforehand, however, it is no small thing that I 
request. It is to help me win this war before Christmas.” 

“You single-handed, end this war before Christmas? Robert, 
you must be crazy.” 

“I have not promised to do it single-handed. I have only pro¬ 
mised to do it before Christmas.*' He smiled at the anxious amaze¬ 
ment of his friend. “If I do it, will you proclaim the means—or at 
least acknowledge the means, when peace is declared?” 

“I shall shout it from every house-top in London,” announced 
Lord Dalhousie fervently—“and invite all the boys in Dalhousie 
castle to come and celebrate with me.” 

At this moment they rolled into the London station. Lord Carnes' 
auto was waiting for them. 

“I am glad I did not ask for faith, Dalhousie!” that wistful 
smile again flitted into Carnes gray eyes. He turned to the car. 
“Come with me, doubting Thomas—and hear the plan—and be ready 
to sign before a notary necessary papers. When peace is declared— 
remember you have promised—to stand as a witness before the world.” 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Stool of Penitence. 

“Amos Russel has no sense of humor!” Margery told herself, the 
following morning as she sat at her desk. “I—I intended fooling 
him for only a few minutes. I should have tojd him before I left the 
room—if that officer had not been standing there, grinning like an 
idiot. I would have told him anyhow—if he had not behaved—as if I 
had suddenly dropped dead. He scared me by wishing me happiness, 
in that wedding-funeral style. I simply had to run. I might have 
gone back—if I had not had that queer feeling in the hall.” 

She fluffed her hair and drew out her beauty box, for a sly dab 
at her nose. “I’ll tell him the whole thing—even my crying about it, 
and feeling—so horrible in the hall. Of course there will be some 
body in his office. There never used to be. I’ll tell him anyway— 
just blurt it out—if an officer—or Mr. Holt himself is there. I’ll 
say ‘That was a story I told you yesterday. It is not true. It was 
a joke.” 

She glanced at the clock. 

“I am going earlier than usual—so that I can stand around and 
wait—if necessary—and feel idiotic, until I can speak to him.” 

Seizing the translations, with a curiously beating heart, Mar¬ 
gery filed down the corridor, and with a repentant soul, opened the 
door of Amos Russell’s office. 

He was not there. 

A young clerk sat behind the desk. 

“Is Mr. Russell out?” asked Margery, a little surprised. 


TRAPPED 


47 


"He has resigned,” said the youth solemnly. 

“No!” gasped Margery. 

“Handed in his resignation late yesterday. It was accepted this 
morning.” 

“Where did he go?” 

“I don’t know. I was appointed a substitute till Mr. Holt, who 
is in Paris, comes back, and makes a permanent appointment. I 
will take the translations.” 

Tears were ever near the surface with Margery, and this was a 
day when her hours of work closed with handing in the translations. 
For the second time that week, she sat on the stool in the cloak room, 
and turning her face to the wall wept violently for two whole minutes. 

“I’d have told him yesterday—if he hadn’t looked so queer.” 

As she recalled the drawn, anguished face of Amos, staring at 
her, she began her cry all over again. 

“It isn’t fair! I never have any luck! Why couldn’t he have 
seen that I was not in earnest? I was nearly giggling all the time. 
He is the most serious—most stupid, man I ever knew! He has 
made me wretched—and I never did a thing to him.” 

The words echoed somewhere within her, and her conscience 
sent a wave of shame to her cheeks that dried the tears. It told her 
she had made herself wretched. Then she wondered why she had 
done the thing that had made her miserable. She felt she was rea¬ 
soning about it, as she asked herself questions—with small attempt 
to answer them. Usually this was satisfactory to herself, but to-day 
was an exception. She had a vague sense of having caught herself in 
a net, and that every movement she made ensnared her more hope¬ 
lessly. iShe was impulsive—and she felt she had—thoughtlessly— 
touched bigger forces than she knew how to control. Then tco, her 
tears and remorse seemed born together. Regret for the act, and 
tears of self-pity, were so curiously combined!, that she lost her sense 
of values. If she wept to herself, andl vowed in her heart she was 
sorry, she considered her act condoned. The person offended, should 
be psychic enough to know she was regretful and had not intended 
to really hurt any one. Heretofore, as far as she could recall, results 
had been eminently satisfactory. She did not dream that she was 
exceptionally ignorant of life, and of how men feel when in love. 
She smoothed out her handkerchief, and had a gleam of understand¬ 
ing that despairing love was suffering. In the novels that she 
had read, the hero who loved without hope, seemed to revel in his 
disappointed state. She musingly rolled the bit of combric up. Amos 
had suffered. This was the first conclusion. It did not thrill her, it 
made her uncomfortable. She had made Amos suffer. This made 
her sad. -She could not wriggle away from it, though she shed more 


48 


TRAPPED 


tears. It really looked as if he had left the office because he could 
not bear to see her. Nothing similar had ever happened before. 

‘‘This is dreadful!” she thought gloomily. 

She drew a long breath, and put her hat on before the mirror 
more quickly than usual.“Love,” she thought, theatrically, “is—a very 
uncomfortable sort of thing. I am never going to fall in love.” 

At the turn in the hall she almost ran into the arms of Clarence 
Holt. Each apologized, Margery rosy and confused, Holt evidently 
pleased that an accident had caused this pretty girl, who never seemed 
to see him, to stop and speak. Of course he had no idea that his 
good friend, Lady Florence, had cautioned the girl never to discuss 
anything, but business, with the head of the department. He turned 
and walked to the top of the stairs with Margery, telling her that he 
was just in from Paris. 

“I am to pass the School of Arts and Sciences,” he said in¬ 
gratiatingly, “I have an order to leave, in here. If you’ll wait a 
moment, I shall be glad to drive you home.” 

“Oh no, I could not put you to that trouble.” 

“No trouble at all. A great pleasure—I insist.” 

Before she could protest again, he had disappeared around the 
corner of the hall. Margery knew she could not possibly run down 
the steps and get out of the building before he came back. She 
couldn’t risk being caught trying to escape. She felt panicky. What 
could she do? Suddenly she caught up her skirt, lifted her slippered 
foot over the stair rail, slid down the highly polished balustrade, and 
was out of the door, and in the magic square, by the time Clarence 
Holt, with a patronizing smile upon his lips, returned. 

He was at first surprised—then angry. As he descended the 
stairs he was puzzled as to how she got away. In the lower corridor 
a guard told him of Margery’s antic, and “ ‘oped she was not “opping 
haway with state papers.” Holt amazed, assured him she was not. 

“Think of the little witch avoiding me like that,” he thought 
piqued. “There’s not another girl in London—in the best circles— 
who would not have felt flattered.” 

He stepped to the door and looked out. 

“Cinderella has nothing on her, when it comes to disappearing.” 

Then he astonished the guard by laughing heartily. 

“She will think about me all the more, because she ran away,” 
he told himself. “She ran because she wants me to run after her.” 


TRAPPED 


49 


CHAPTER XIII. 

The Magic of the Square Fails. 

Until Amos declared his love to Margery, there had been no con¬ 
flict in the dual life she led. On entering the magic square the X. Y. 
Z. office, and all connected with it, being blotted out. To-day,how¬ 
ever, as soon as she caught her breath, from her sprint down the bal¬ 
ustrade and across the square, and emerged as Margery Keblinger, 
that painful sensation that she was responsible for Amos Russell’s 
resignation gnawed at the bottom of her consciousness. In some 
subtle sense the unpleasantness of the whole affair emphasised 
Russell’s brusque statement that she would be an old maid. Young as 
she was she knew that all the doors she cared to open were barred 
with gold. 

“And opened but to golden keys.” 

Marriage was the only key she could possess. 

“This awful war makes all my dreams next to impossible!” she 
sighed dismally. “Amos is right, I may end my days alone and in 
poverty.” 

Her dark eyes surged with tears as she pictured herself trans¬ 
lating endless piles of telegrams through endless years—until she was 
old—old! and still she must go on translating! 

Here Russell’s look—the drawn lines about his mouth—the 
startled anguish in his eyes, rose before her and blotted out the sun¬ 
shine. Never before had she felt abased, torn in soul—and wretched 
from an act of her own; and because this was the first one, she 
could not argue it down. 

Suddenly, she came into view of a vacant lot where about a 
hundred young men with their coats off, were having a first rough 
drilling. 

“The awkward squad,” a man passing called them, but to Mar¬ 
gery’s unskilled eye they appeared very graceful. They were splendid 
looking young fellows, clean and tall. An officer in uniform stood 
watching them. At both ends of the line was a Private who marched 
them up and down the vacant space. Where the basement of a house 
had been, they raced down, leaping, stumbling, laughing; and then 
charged up the rain-washed earth and lose bricks, each scrambling 
to reach the top first. 

An iron fence ran along one side of the declivity. A crowd 
packed along it, a few men, and many women and children, some 
poorly, some smartly dressed. Margery, forgetting Amos completely, 
stopped to watch eagerly this fraction of the future British army, 
already listed to cross the Channel in the Spring. < 

“If it were a foot-ball scrimmage they could not enjoy it more, 
said a voice beside Margery. The girl turned and seeing the lady’s 


50 


TRAPPED 


eyes filled with tears, asked sympathetically, “Is one of them your 
son?” 

“Oh no. I am an American, and know no one in London, but 
all over the city I have seen similar practice squads. They are such 
fine boys—to be fed to cannon. I hope when women get the vote they 
will devise some means to prevent war,” and smiling she passed on. 

A young officer stopped near the iron fence to watch the drill. 
Something in his blue eyes, staring intently at the embryo soldiers, 
seemed familiar to Margery. He whirled, putting his lithe tallness 
to advantage in the movement, and walked over to have a chat with 
the boys, who were taking a temporary rest. For an infintesimal 
moment, their eyes met as he passed her. She looked away quickly, 
and was too well bred to risk meeting his gaze a second time. 

Margery wondered if she had seen him somewhere. No, she told 
herself, he was entirely too handsome for her to have met and for¬ 
gotten. 

Glancing at her watch, she saw that she was likely to be late, 
and hastened on, thinking gloomily —“Yes, the very best are going 
to the front.”She reached home just as the tea cart was rolled in. 

Lady Florence greeted her absent-mindedly, then seemed to recall 
herself abruptly—a characteristic habit which Margery was begin¬ 
ning to know. 

“Wear your most becoming gown this evening—and arrange your 
hair as your mother's is in the locket.” 

Margery beamed. “A dinner party?” she asked. 

“A—small one—and a dance afterwards.” 

Margery knew there was a man—a possible suitor in all this, 
but there was nothing to do but wait.... 

“I was with Mr. Holt this morning. He was very kind—and 
he is a —very capable business man. I asked him to dinner to¬ 
night. ...” 

“He doesn't know my real name!” exploded Margery. 

iShe saw his eyes, as they had fastened on her at the top of the 
stairs—that look in them made her creepy, and something girlish 
and unspoiled in her rushed out vehemently. 

“He is—old, Lady Florence!” 

The countess ignored her last exclamation. 

“He will have to know your real name soon. You are in the 
office now for patriotism—your quarterly income is secure— 
the Duke has tied that American up so that he can't get away from 
the lease. Everybody will have to know you are there. It is better 
for you to be presented to Mr. Holt against your true background, 
than for him to discover it. He would do this, as you are—in a way 
—now entering society, and 1 our friends are going oftener to the 
office. I'll have him take you in to dinner. I hope you will make 


TRAPPED 


51 


an impression on him. He may be attracted to you—from the dash 
of mystery in it all.” 

Margery lowered her fine lashes. If Lady Florence could have 
seen that exit from the X. Y. Z. building not more than an hour 
ago! Then she stole a glance at her. 

Her protest found words again. “He’s not good looking.” 

“He‘s not bad-looking.” Silence for a full minute. 

“He’s not young.” 

“Youth's not worth much. They out-grow it! Ugly men make 
the best husbands—particularly if they are older. They lavish 
money on their wives, instead of spending it on themselves. He’d 
give you the finest gowns in England.” 

This shot told. Besides—a new lover of any kind was exhil¬ 
arating to Margery’s lover-less horizon. Amos did not count. What 
would Mr. Holt do—and think—now that he knew Margery was the 
niece of a Duke? The advantage was so decidedly with her, that she 
forgot for a moment that he had wanted to flirt with one of his em¬ 
ployees—Florence Flemming. 

“If you don’t care for him.” the countess reluctantly conceded 
“you are not obliged to marry him—if it comes to his asking you.” 

Margery, on her metal, decided that it should at least come to 
that. Her face reflected the thought, and Lady Florence drew a long 
sigh of relief. “Lady Caroline has been angling for him, for five 
or more years. He is well-connected, his position gives him prestige, 
and he may inherit a title—rather remote chance, though. He's 
proven the arbiter of many a girl’s popularity when she made her 
debut. A wealthy lover is about the best asset a debutant can pos¬ 
sess. If you are wise-” 

Margery’s bronze-lashed eyes for a second flashed triumph, and 
then looked demurely down. She felt sure of herself in the art of 
entertaining men—unless they talked as did Lard Carnes and Lord 
Dalhousie! “But they are so much older than he is,” she assured 
herself hastily. 

As Margery ascended the stairs, she thought, “A man who poss¬ 
esses all Lady Florence says Mr. Holt does, simply can’t be very 
objectionable. I’m determined that he shall ask me to marry him— 
and to accept him. Look what love did to Amos! It’s unreasonable 
and stupid.” 

After she entered her room she added, “Unless....” 


52 


TRAPPED 


CHAPTER XIV. 

The Dinner Guest. 

When Margery entered the drawing-room that evening Lady 
Florence's eyes bespoke satisfaction. Before she could express it 
however, she was called to the telephone. When she returned, she 
appeared absent minded, with a tiny frown between her eyes. 

“I wonder if Mr. Holt is not coming?" thought Margery, with 
both a leap of heart, and a sense of disappointment. 

Lady Florence sent the girl with a message to Miss Davis, the 
housekeeper. When she returned she sent her for her fan. By the 
time Margery had finished her errands the guests had arrived and 
were standing in groups conversing. Near the door Lady Florence 
was talking to Mr. Holt. 

With the lightning glance of a young girl, Margery “took him in," 
in his dinner garb. He was perfectly tailored, his socks and tie 
were strictly the last cry on the subject, and his expanse of shirt- 
bosom gave his slight baldness an air of distinction. She drew a 
faint breath of relief. Then she sensed that Lady Florence had seen 
her out of the tail of her eye. 

“I have a surprise in store for you," Margery heard her say. “It 
is not often that the dramatic occurs in our common-place London 
ways, but I feel almost a thrill in telling you that the young girl 
Florence Flemming, whom I placed in your office—” Margery was 
sure she saw the color creep into Holt’s cheek, and knew that he was 
wondering if Lady Florence was about to avenge his advances to 
Florence Flemming.—“has an additional name..’’ 

Lady Florence moved back and motioned Margery forward, 
“Margery Keblinger, my god-daughter, and great neice of the Duke of 
Almont, and Lady Caroline, who is such a friend of yours.’’ 

It was pleasant for Lady Florence to watch Holt gasp. She re¬ 
membered her own agreeable shock at seeing the girl for the first 
time, in an evening gown. This was an entirely new frock—soft, 
white, gauzy as fairy web. But no man, after a glance at that blos¬ 
som-tinted face, the dancing dimples, and eyes, could see anything 
else. And this man saw her—in the denouement of removing a dis¬ 
guise, it must be remembered. 

The little girl whom he had thought bewitching—was a duke’s 
niece. This was Holt’s second impression—the first was simply the 
girl’s lovliness. Then, as he bowed, he tried to grasp the correct 
phase of the situation, and to establish his dignity. He was 
trying to recall just how far his questionable attentions had gone. 

“She headed me off—she knows what I did—but then I asked 
to drive her home. That was a lucky thing!’’ 

“If I do not die laughing inwardly, there is no end to the fun I 


TRAPPED 


53 


may have at his expense/’ Margery was thinking. Of course I must 
never appear to know he really wanted to flirt with me.” 

“You will realize that I am democratic,” smiled the countess. 

“Since Oakhurst is leased her services with you are—patriotic.” 

“We need her very much,” said Holt positively—and truthfully. 

“That is why I am staying with you,” said Margery archly. She 
was enjoying Holt’s rather scattered state. 

Lady Florence moved away. 

“I am congratulating myself,” Holt said slowly, regaining his 
poise, “that I recognized the disguised princess.” 

Marery flushed under his gaze. It was veiled now, but she 
remember what it was when it looked out boldly—at insignificant 
Florence Flemming. 

“Why did you run away from me, this afternoon?” he said in a 
low voice. 

Margery blushed, then paled a little. 

“If he asked me to marry him—I could not—but I would—I 
would!” she repeated, inwardly. 

“What an adorably shy little thing,” Holt was thinking. 

As the pink surged back into her cheeks, he made the mistake of 
flattering himself that he had really made an impression on her. 

“You were not allowed to talk to me? Eh?” he asked, a sudden 
light coming to him. “I understand—and I like you all the 
better for it.” 

Margery nodded, with a charming half-laugh. 

At the table however, she received her dramatic surprise. As 
she turned to see who sat on her other side, she looked straight into 
the handsome blue eyes of the officer who that afternoon had watched 
the awkward squad. 

“Oh!” she said involuntarily. 

“This is the greatest luck of my life,“ he said quickly. “To find 
myself sitting by you.” 

Margery wondered why the countess had not mentioned him. 

He was far handsomer than he appeared on the street. He was a 
lieutenant. This a half glance told her. 

But Holt was speaking and she had to turn. 

“I was beginning to believe that you really disliked me. I 
couldn’t see why you would not accept the simple courtesy of putting 
you down at the School of Arts and Sciences. Say—you were in 
rather a tight place.” 

Someone demanded Holt’s attention, and the young officer imme¬ 
diately spoke. Margery met again the admiring gaze of the darkest, 
most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. She was sure of this. 


54 


TRAPPED 


She did her duty however, to Holt. More than once she caught the 
approving eye of Lady Florence. 

“I must not mar my future—and this awfully stunning young 
officer may be married—or engaged,” she told herself. 

She turned her back—at least one milky shoulder—on the black- 
fringed, fascinating eyes. 

As they were rising from the table the lieutenant asked for as 
many dances as Margery could give. Holt heard and regretted that 
he could not ask for all of them—but he did not dance. 

“Wait for me in the conservatory,” flashed the lieutenant, as 
Margery passed him. She nodded happily, and the radiance re¬ 
mained with her while talking to the ladies. 

She had just selected a seat whose cushions harmonized with the 
tone of her gown, when the young man appeared in the doorway. 
He was taller, more distinguished—a little older, than she had at first 
supposed. 

“I wonder” she mused “if the Greek gods ever had black hair! 
He is simply the handsomest thing I ever saw! I—wish he had 
not come to-night.” 

He sat down and they arranged the dances, then she teased: 

“Of course a military title just now, is the important factor of 
life. Still there is something in a name. What do your friends call 
you?” 

“Oh—that varies,” he chuckled softly. “At college the boys 
called me.... ” 

“Oh, I mean your surname.” 

“My surname!” he cried in surprise. “Do you mean you do not 
know that I am the nephew of Lord Carnes? And that....” 

“You’re lucky,” she nodded. “But I hadn’t the faintest idea of 
it.” 

Then without any reason for it they laughed merrily, as though 
her ignorance were a rare joke. 

“I can’t decide,” thought the girl, “whether he is better looking 
when laughing or when serious. Then aloud: “And your name is.. ?” 
she smiled brilliantly. 

“Dallas,” he replied; and his eyes said, “That is what I wish you 
to call me.” Then, still smiling, “Strangers call me Lieutenant Dallas 
Hope, of his Majesty’s... .What’s the matter?” 

Like an electric shock the name “Hope” fell on the girl’s con¬ 
sciousness. iShe shrank back white and frigthened. 

“Hope—did—did you say Hope?” she faltered. 

He stared a moment, and replied curtly, “Yes, I said Hope. Dal¬ 
las Hope. Is it such a terrible name?” 

“No, oh! no,” She tried to think of something that would hide 
her confusion. “It’s a lovely name.” Amos Russell’s boyish face 
rose before her—she was looking into his startled, agonized eyes, and 
hearing her own voiec: “Yes, Mrs. Hope.” It was the first time she 


TRAPPED 


65 


had remembered Amos during the evening. It dampened her rad¬ 
iance. She came back to a realization of her companions bewildered 
gaze. “I—I was thinking of a hero in a novel/’ she stumbled on. 
“He—he was a very grand hero, but I—I never imagined—or knew 
any one whose real name was Hope. I thought it only a book name. 
Ah! there's the music! The countess told me to come to her as soon 
as it began.” 

“You know” he said, rising, and apparently accepting her ex¬ 
planation, “I always have the first dance with the girl who wears—’’ 
he glanced at her quickly—“turquoise and pearls.” 

The smiles and dimples together returned to Margery’s face. 

“I shall be only too—delighted!’’ she took his arm—“unless Lady 
Florence has already arranged for me to give it to some one else.” 

Lady Florence was waiting with another partner. With a glance 
at the attractive lieutenant she carried him swiftly from the ball¬ 
room to a dingy little den, to question him about—his aunts, his 
companions, the movements of his regiment, and the length of time 
he had been in London. He knew she must have heard it all from his 
uncle, Lord Carnes. When Dallas was sure —two, may be three— 
of his dances with Margery were over, the countess introduced him to 
an “oldish” girl, and asked him to see that she had a good time—and 
left him. Inwardly he was raging. Outwardly he was charmed to 
obey his hostess. 

Love has ever laughed at well laid plans. The countess barely 
escaped when Clarence Holt appeared—to sit out the dance with the 
“oldish girl.” 

“The world still has use for men too fat to dance,” thought 
Dallas. 

When he found Margery she agreed with him—and two of his 
dances were not over. And had he ever one-stepped before? By all 
the gods he had not. 


* * * * * 

“I was never so indignant,” confided Lady Florence, to Miss 
Davis late that night, as she sat up in bed ready to turn out the light. 
“The idea of Robert pretending to be ill at the last minute—and 
sending his nephew to fill his place. And not telephoning me, till 
the boy was actually on his way! But if I had dreamed he was so 
outrageously good-looking, I should have ordered the footman not to 
admit him. After he was in the house there was nothing to do but 
make the best of it. I placed him on the same side of the table as 
Margery—several couples down. There was a confusion, somehow, 
and he sat down beside her. After they were settled what could I 
do? I have a suspicion that the young lieutenant did the whole thing 
himself!” In spite of her indignation the countess had to laugh. 
“He’s capable of just such a trick. Margery really did well—with 


56 


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my help. Carence Holt seems completely infatuated. He raved over 
her.” 

“You think Margery was not impressed by the lieutenant’s good 
looks?” inquired Miss Davis plaintively. 

“I can't say that exactly—he's extraordinarily delighftul! But 
thank goodness, he leaves for the front to-morrow—and it is not likely 
that she will ever see him again.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

The Locket Becomes an Amulet. 

The day upon which Dallas was to leave for the front—Margery 
found it hard to tear herself from the breakfast table and the pleas¬ 
ure of talking over the dinner of the previous evening. 

Lady Florence took another piece of toast. “Clarence Holt 
promised to accept all my invitations, and asked me to invite him 
often.” 

“I hope you will do it,” said the girl, reluctantly folding her 
napkin. “He really can make himself entertaining.” 

“So can—Dallas Hope,” Lady Florence glanced at Margery as 
she pushed back her chair. 

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Margery, quite as casually, adjusting her 

hat. 

The countess dropped her eyes. “It is a great pity that he 
possesses nothing execpt his pay, and a tiny allowance from his uncle, 
that enables him to meet expenses* You know he is Lord Carnes' 
nephew.?” 

“He mentioned that last night,” Margery replied as she stuck a 
pin carefully in her hat. A surge of unaccountable annoyance 
swelled in her at the news that Lieutenant Hope was poor. But she 
could have hugged herself that no sign of it rose to the face that 
looked back at her from the mirror over the mantel. “Why should 
I care?” she asked herself. 

“He told me that he enjoyed' the dance immensely,” she said aloud, 
coolly. “Mr. Holt said he never attended a more beautiful dinner¬ 
party anywhere. I never adored anything so much in my life. I 
would love to stay and talk about it all day—instead of going to the 
office.” !She almost said the “hateful old office.” 

“Not that I object to the work, it is easy enough,” she thought, 
as she caught a bus to make up for her lingering breakfast, “What 
hurts is, that it is really not patriotic —bust that I do it for pay!” 

She had been enjoying the situation because it was so much better 
than her routine at the School of Arts and Sciences. Last night 
though, had been like a page from the gay life in her mother's home. 
A mere sip of that nectar—and a new consciousness of her beauty— 


TRAPPED 


57 


had got into her blood. Her work seemed the outward and visible 
sign that divided her from the class she adored—the idle rich. To 
this caste she belonged, and she was determined to become a member 
of it—“if only a connection by marriage,” she thought with a little 
grimace. 

As she entered the magic square, she saw the laughing blue 
eyes of Dallas Hope, and smiled with an odd sigh. As she left its 
shadows she thought of Clarence Holt—and shivered. 

The hours dragged at her desk. She was both glad and sorry 
when the minute arrived to take the translations to the office, where 
she formerly saw Russell. The Boy Scouts had been withdrawn, as 
the first rush of war work had subsided. She always felt relieved 
when she had finished this task. To-day as she stood waiting for her 
receipts, her conscience awoke energetically. In spite of her protests 
it told her plainly she had caused Amos to resign. She knew too well 
what it meant for him to leave his position- He had told her that 
his mother had prepared him for this career, and that she had hoped 
he might become head of the department. As she waited she realized 
how much he had told her about himself—intimate details—that she 
had listened to charmingly. It annoyed her now more than she 
wanted to admit. She tried to thrust it out of her mind. “It is 
vanity to think he left—on my account. No doubt he has forgotten 
that he proposed to me. Men are like that. But I should write to him 
and tell him that my marriage—was a joke.” 

Summoning courage she asked the young clerk the questions in 
her mind. 

“Where is Mr. Rusesll?” 

“Nothing has been heard from him.” 

“Who is to succeed him?” 

“The vacancy has not been filled. Mr. Holt hopes he will recon¬ 
sider and return. But he left no address.” 

“I’d hate to feel that I had injured his future,” she thought as 
she walked down the hall. “My impulsiveness is the cause of all of 
it. It’s extraordinary that I never thought of it before. Hereafter 
I am going to do nothing until I look at it from every possible angle.” 

This thought brought her relief. “When it is impossible to undo 
a thing it is foolish to waste time worrying over it. I wanted to tell 
Amos, that I was joking with him—and I wanted to write to him. 
Both are impossible. So I am not going to think of what he said or 
what I said—or what we both did. He’s gone out of my life forever.” 

She felt immensely lightened of her burden. It should all trouble 
her no more—she was resolved upon this. Her step quickened. She 
remembered that she was to attend a theatre party that evening. 

As she turned from the magic square into a wide street, she 
faced a regiment of marching soldiers. She knew they had just at- 


TRAPPED 


58 

tended a last service at the Y. M. C. A. building and were now on their 
way to the station to entrain for Belgium or France. 

Everybody and everything had cleared from the thoroughfare, 
giving the troops right of way. The band was playing the gayest 
tune imaginable. Horses tossed their heads and side-stepped; soldiers 
sat erect, looking before them with the air of the conquering hero. 

“The glory and the panoply of war!” an enthusiastic voice near 
Margery exclaimed, and her heart echoed the thrill. 

“I enlisted yesterday,” continued the boyish voice proudly, “and 
in six months I’ll be like them.” 

“You’re in luck to be nineteen! I wish I were!” envied his 
companion. 

On came the marching soldiers. There seemed thousands of them, 
to the girl. It was ennobling, and soul-stirring, to see these men going 
so gallantly to meet their country’s foes. Margery’s pulse quickened 
with patriotic emotion. War was not so black after all. She hated 
being only a girl, and unable to go to the front, and to suffer and 
die grandly for king and England; The thought was magnificent— 
uplifting. 

“War developes fine instincts,” she thought bewilderingly. “It 
makes us feel like brothers—makes us want to sacrifice ourselves 
for others.” 

“This is exciting and splendid!” she said under breath. 

“While the music lasts,” said a woman’s voice beside her, ironic¬ 
ally. 

Margery felt indignant. But her eyes centered on the lines of 
khaki men swinging to the beat of the drum. Here and there in 
the street, beside a soldier, marched a woman. Sometimes old, some¬ 
times young—but always keeping step with the man beside whom 
she was walking. 

Instantly the girl’s mood changed. She felt saddened. Through 
misty tears she saw a young officer leave the line and heard him 
exclaim happily: 

“This is luck! Even better than last night!” 

“Lieutenant Hope!” she gasped, then smiled radiantly through 
her tears. “Is this your company?” 'She tried to dash off the pear¬ 
ly drops. “I couldn’t help crying when I saw so many brave men 
going away to be.... ” 

“Don’t look at it that way,” he returned, putting out his hand 
for hers. “Think that we are to win glory for our country and fame 
for ourselves.” 

“With all my heart I hope you will,” she said so spontaneously and 


TRAPPED 


59 


so earnestly, that the young man’s heart leaped under its khaki cover¬ 
ing. 

He bent close to her. “It is so good of you, to say that;” then 
straightening gaily, “I intend to be one of them.” 

Here Margery realized that she was walking along with him, she 
on the curb, and he in the street, until they came to an over crowded 
pavement where the girl was compelled to step out into the street. 
It seemed a perfectly natural thing to walk on to the station. Mar¬ 
gery had the strange, delicious feeling of being as much alone with 
Lieutenant Hope as she had the evening before in Lady Florence’s 
conservatory. 

On the opposite side of the street Amos Russell stood watching 
for Margery. He saw her just as Hope spoke to her, and he followed 
the soldiers, keeping the two in view. 

“What’s this regiment?” he asked an old veteran at the street 


corner. 

“The Westmorland Guards,” the old soldier said proudly: and 
Amos wrote it carefully in his note book, as he sauntered on behind 
the two. 

On reaching the station Lieutenant Hope looked at his watch. 

“Our train will not leave for a half an hour. Gould you possibly 
wait and see me off?” 

Could she possibly refuse—with those blue eyes staring at her 
a bit wistfully? 

“I shall be delighted. Lady Florence is out of town to-day and 
lunch will be served when I arrive. Besides—” with the characteris¬ 
tic sweep of her lashes, “this may be my only opportunity of seeing off 
an officer who is to return loaded with honors.” 

He laughed happily. “I’m gratful to Fate for smiling to-day. 
Sending you right out in the nick of time! I’ll not make a noise if I 
get hard knocks in the coming weeks. Let me find you a seat—I’ve 
some last arrangements—then I’ll be back.” 

“I feel too restless to sit down. I’ll wait for you on the plat¬ 


form near your car.” . . _ _ . , 

She watched him—admiringly—as he joined his company and 
disappeared around the corner of the building. She walked slowly 
through the crowded rooms to the platform. The waiting tram was 
already filled with troops, some sticking their belongings m the 
racks, some looking from the windows, and all so healthy and bright, 
that it made her heart ache to think that soon some of them might 
be lying dead at the front. The faces of the women gave her no 


Near the doors of the compartments were those who had come 
for a last look, a last caress, a last broken-hearted good-bye, to the 
one best loved. Margery noticed a girl—no older than herself—walk¬ 
ing down the platform with a good-looking boy, his arm around her 
waist They gazed into each other’s eyes, whispering with lips al- 


60 


TRAPPED 


most touching, with absorbed rapture—yet with stony grief—love 
naked—but unashamed. Margery’s heart tightened, and she looked 
the other way. She did not know love was ever like this! Her eyes 
turned on a soldier with a baby in his arms, while a wife and two 
little ones were kissed in turn. She could not look at these either— 
her wandering gaze met a gray-haired mother telling her noble 
looking son good-bye. In every face— in every group—the girl saw 
the same heart-breaking tragedy. Never before had she stood in an 
atmosphere of wide-spread grief. Her heart seemed gripped by a 
vise. She could hardly breath. 

“This is just the beginning,” she thought. For the first time in 
her life she suffered acutely for others. “Germany, who started it, 
knew what it would mean—the heart-ache, the agony, the broken 
families, the ruined lives—yet they have plunged a continent into it! 
This is only one of thousands of similar scenes all over Europe!” 

In witnessing this inexpressible grief of the parting—the rend- 
ings of hearts around her, she forgot Lieutenant Hope. She forgot 
the petty ambitions that had been surging through her all morning— 
forgot everything, before the white-faced agony meeting her eyes! 

“I cannot stand it! It will kill me!” She pressed her hand 
against her heart to keep down a fierce physical pain. She felt 
faint, and dropped into a chair, that had just been vacatedl Hiding 
her face, she felt her cheeks wet with the first tears she had ever shed 
for the sufferings of others. 

‘Here! you mustn’t do that; child!” It was Dallas Hope beside 

her. 

His eyes met hers with an eager, hurt concern, that sent a soft 
thrill through her. Did he really care to that degree? 

She indicated the woman albout her, with a catch in her voice. 

“I didn’t know that war was this—this horrible thing!” 

He, too, looked at the tear-stained faces—with a soldierly pre¬ 
monition that it was barely the beginning. But it was also a sold¬ 
ierly part to cheer Margery. Besides he wanted her last thoughts 
of him to be dynamic with this new intensity of life that swept 
through him, as he looked at her. He felt he had touched something 
in her that meant much more than their gaiety the evening before. 

He began talking to her gently, letting the exaltation of the 
hope of making the world war-less by this war, thrill through his 
words. They were simple and boyish, but he knew intuitively the 
right phrase to use, the exact hope to present. Soon he saw the 
color and smiles sweeping back to Margery’s lips. For though her 
better self had been deeply stirred, she had not been re-created in 
that moment. 

Gazing now into the ocean-blue eyes—so fathomless, that a girl 
might lose her heart in them and never find it again—she forgot the 
tremendeous tug of the suffering around her; and his mellow laugh 
in her ear, scoffing at danger, loosened the tension. She realized 


TRAPPED 


61 


they had drawn closer than months of such meetings of the previous 
night would have made possible. 

Amos had strolled along the platform—at first behind others— 
then, as Margery’s absorption increased, openly, in an almost defiant 
hope that she would see him. As he passed, the dull ache in his 
heart became a fierce throb. It was torture to remain, yet he could 
not leave. This was the man she had married—the man who had 
snatched her from him. 

“Does he love her—as I do?” he asked himself. Hope was about 
to leave her, yet he was smiling gaily—then a laugh—a real laugh 
floated to Amos above the clamour around him. Could a man 
really love and be gay, at such a supreme moment? Yet she loved 
him. He saw Margery had been crying. Yet Hope was making her 
happy again. 

The ice in Russell’s heart seemed to seethe and boil—and then to 
freeze again. He was vibrating between two passions—love for the 
girl—and hate for the man. Was it hate? It was a wild, unnamed 
sort of power. 

“I will not hate him,” he said suddenly and grimly, “I have 
never hated any fellow being.” 

At this moment Dallas, resting his hand on the back of Margery’s 
chair, bent over and spoke to her tenderly. Amos would have sacri¬ 
ficed his immortal soul to have comforted her in that way, to have had 
her smile up at him, as she was doing at the young officer. It was 
more than he could bear. He turned abruptly away—giddy with 
his over-mastering emotion. He sat down with his back to them. 

When he looked again he had resolved what he would do. His 
chin was stronger, his gray eyes as dark as gun metal, his lips 
closed in a bloodless line. As he rose his whole body seemed to have 
stiffened in response to a mental suggestion. 

“It will require indomitable will to do it,” he told himself grim¬ 
ly”—but it is better than to be thought a coward.” 

As he turned to Margery and Hope, he saw that Hope was about 
to spring into his compartment. He drew a breath of relief—at 
having escaped—as he thought, the final caresses. Over the clamour 
of the station he could not hear w T hat they were saying. 

“Are you going to think of me—a little?” Dallas Hope was 
asking: 

“Yes,” said Margery simply “and I shall read the list....” 

“Take care, don’t think me gloomy fortune,” he interrupted 
cheerfully. He looked her over searchingly. “Give me a rose—or a 
ribbon—or something—as a charm against bad luck. Now that I 
know you—I’ve just got to come back! You must pray all the gods 
of victory for us.” 

“I shall pray—for you,” almost unconsciously slipped from her 
tongue. She hesitated, wondering what she could give him. Her 


62 


TRAPPED 


handkerchief—was out of commission. The most fertile imagina¬ 
tion could not think of it as a faver to foe bestowed upon a knight. 

“The prayers of the righteous availeth much/’ Dallas quoted 
sentimentally, as the conductor shouted “All aboard.” 

He stood with one foot on the step, his hand on the door. 

“Not anything—not even a rose or a lock of hair”—a sudden 
seriousness shook his voice, and his hand closed almost cruelly over 
hers—“nothing to ward off an ill-fated bullet?” 

The bit of superstition in all of us flashed up in Margery in con¬ 
nection with the locket lying warm about her neck. It was the only 
thing she had with her that she could give him. As she met the ap¬ 
peal of Dallas Hope’s eyes, she had a curious feeling that this 
would save him. 

Lieutenant Hope stepped into the coach—closed the door, and 
lowered the window. As he looked out she had unfastened the chain. 
The train began to move slowly. Dallas extended his hand for a 
last farewell,—and Margery placed the trinket in it, and ran along by 
the car to say— 

“Wear this as your amulet—till we meet again.” 

“Oh—how good of you!” He leaned out of the window as his 
fingers closed over it—I’ll think of you every minute till that happi¬ 
est of days!” 

The train was moving fast—he waved his cap—he threw her a 
kiss—and was gone. 

Amos saw the gift of the locket, saw Margery waving her wet 
handkerchief; and turning grimly he strode out of the station. 

Margery stood burning in an enveloping blush. 

“What will Lientenant Hope think of me? Giving him my locket 
—my most intimate possession—when I have known him only twenty- 
four hours! I gave it to him before I thought!” 

Her resolution of the morning surged into her consciousness. 

“What will he think of me!” she repeated in dismay 

Hearing a sob she turned. The woman with the baby and two 
little children passed her, with her handkerchief over her face. Other 
women stood, or huddled on benches, luggage, anything—but all were 
weeping. The men had gone smiling—into action. For the women 
there was waiting and heart-ache—maybe the beloved name in cold 
print, in the dead list. Dull, dreary, despairing, waiting! 

As the girl looked from one agonized face to another she 
thought—“This is a man’s world 1 . Even in war they have the best of 
it. What is dying, to suspense like this? The American was right, 
Women are the chief sufferers, and should have the right to stop 
anything that destroys them as war does. They should be the 
court of last appeal.” 

The women were leaving now, she observed, in groups of two or 
threes. The white-faced mother, though, had sunk to the platform, 
and seemed unable to arise. Over her bowed head, a friend, crying 


TRAPPED 


63 


audibly, was trying to comfort her. As Margery passed, her natural 
reserve gave way before her sympathy, and she asked, “Her husband 
or her son?” 

“Oh, her son, Miss—such a grand noble boy.” 

The mother’s sobs broke out afresh. 

“An only child? Has she no other children?” asked Margery. 

“That’s the pity of it,” replied the friend indignantly, while 
her tears still fell. “A worthless lad who drinks.” She wiped her 
eyes with sudden energy, “Plenty good for German bullets to kill.” 

The anguished mother bowed her head lower, sobbing aloud. 
Her friend, however, utterly unmindful of this, continued: “With all 
his faults he’s not a coward. He’s brave in fighting—he’s always in 
a row. He volunteered—but they refused him because he had a cig- 
ajrel^-heaiTt. What differfenee w’ouldi that make—with a bullet 
through it? The grand Edward—engaged to my daughter—goes to 
be killed; and the idle Frank....” Words failed her; and delicacy, 
though late coming, closed her lips. 

“The flower of the kingdom from prince to pauper is going to the 
front,” exclaimed Margery impulsively, as she thought of Lieutenant 
Hope going—and Clarence Holt staying. “What Will become of the 
country?” 

“It is going from bad to worse as fast as it can,” replied the 
woman, “men have lost their faith in God, and women their faith in 
men.” 

“If the suffragette’s would stop smashing pictures and burning 
churches, and try to get the drunkards into the army....” 

“But the drunkards make poor soldiers,” said Margery. 

“When they can’t get liquor they make fine soldiers; and a 
training camp is a good place to sober them up.” 

But Margery had passed on, through the gate, and hailed a cab. 
She chanced to touch her breast, where she did not feel the accustom¬ 
ed locket. 

Suppose Lady Florence should ask for it?” she thought in cold 
terror. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Amos Vows a Vow 

Before Russell left the station he assertained the full name of 
Margery’s companion and quite a deal about the Westmorland Regi¬ 
ment. 

He raged inwardly. 

“Lieutenant Hope has stolen her from me—worse. Because he is 
going to the front and I am staying at home, he has made her think 


64 


TRAPPED 


me a coward. I’d rather she would hate, than to have a con¬ 
tempt for me.” 

These tormenting and mortifying reflections harrowed the boy 
as he walked homeward. Loneliness is like a magnifying glass. 
It enlarges every triviality. If Amos had possessed one strong, 
sensible friend with whom he could have talked matters over, his 
view-point would have been vastly different. As it was, by the 
time he had unlocked his front door, he felt that nothing could turn 
him from the resolution he had made at the station. 

He passed his mother’s portrait, and paused. An infinite sad¬ 
ness touched his face. The only being who had ever loved him, 
smiled at him with sweetly persuasive indulgence. In the passion 
of his young soul he longed for her to guide him, advise him, comfort 
him. That his widowed mother had idolized him, he recalled with a 
pang as keen as a sword thrust. That she too was sometimes sad, 
he did not know; there had ever been a smile for him. In a flash 
of memory his life stood out before him with amazing clearness. 
True, there was a blur when he tried to recall their coming to London. 
He could go no farther back than when they entered this house and 
his mother placed in his chubby hands crimson roses. From that day 
until the hour of her death she had filled his life to the brim with 
roses. Even when he was ill with measles—the only sickness he 
could recollect—there had been the promise of beautiful things to 
come, and heaps of pennies which were to provide many pleasures. 

His had been a very busy life, and in a way—he now realized— 
a very solitary one. But there had always been something to do— 
either work or play. For the first time he understood how his 
mother’s love had planned and supplied the amusements and duties 
which had kept him—an only child, without other companionship—oc¬ 
cupied and happy. For nearly eighteen years they two had been all 
in all to each other. They knew nobody, and none had seemed to de¬ 
sire their acquaintance. Now he dimly wondered why? But it did 
not occur to him that her love had been selfish, or that his powers 
for making friends had been dwarfed. Instead, he remembered how 
perfectly blissful had been their days together. 

Mrs. Russell, in order to cultivate in him a taste for history 
or literature, and to instil noble thoughts in his mind, had contrived 
a beautiful game, in which Amos lived the most stirring or courageous 
episodes in the lives of favorite heroes. As Jack-the-Giant-Killer— 
in costume—when a tiny child, he had destroyed the weeds—monster 
men— in his mother’s garden. At tea, he was Prince Charming en¬ 
tertaining Cinderella—his mother—at the ball. Or perhaps, King 
Arthur at his round-table. Once he was Little Samuel serving Eli 
in the temple. And always Mrs. Russell was in the “cast.”At one 


TRAPPED 


65 


moment she would be his bitterest foe, to whom he defiantly shouted: 

“Come one! Come all! This rock shall fly 
From its firm base, as soon as I.” 

The next she was the beautiful Ellen, for whose sake—as Mal¬ 
colm—he fought the hated Roderick Dhu. The following day pos¬ 
sibly he was Hercules, performing the twelve labors; or Coeur de 
Lion, Alfred the Great, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Galahad—who never 
enteretained an evil thought, or may be, brave, self-sacrificing Henry 
Esmond. 

And so, on and on, from the dawn of time, down both history 
and fiction, to near the end of the last century, he had, while at 
play with his mother, impersonated them all. Romance had permea¬ 
ted his very being. Unknown to himself and Mrs. Russell, while he 
played, he had absorbed, not only their sentiment, but their sentimen¬ 
tality. It had long, sub-consciously, lain buried in his soul. He was 
now looking at his past life, and his future, through the eyes of 
a dead generation. But of this he was completely ignorant. 

One year of rough-and-tumble school-boy experience, would have 
done more for Amos than a decade of imaginary association with the 
“immortals” had accomplished. 

Having been denied this, he took himself and his career—es¬ 
pecially his career—very seriously. His mother had considered his 
life w T ork one of the big things of the world, and she had lost no op¬ 
portunity of impressing the fact upon the mind of her son. 

As the years passed, Mrs. Russell looked upon the result, and 
—thought—she saw that it was good. For neither tutors, nor lack 
of youthful companions, had marred the boy’s beauty or his fine phy¬ 
sique. Indeed she was more than satisfied with her unwise training, 
and felt fully repaid for all the study it had required of her, to keep 
pace with the youth’s growing intellect. 

Mrs. Russell’s own life had been one of repression. She was the 
only child of a dissenting preacher. Her stern, puritanical father 
objected to levity in any form. He disapproved her Dresden china, 
doll-baby beauty, and environed her with every possible re¬ 
striction. So the girl—unknown to him—had turned, first to fai¬ 
ry lore and later to old fashioned romances, for relaxation—living 
much in her imagination. When quite young she was married to 
the man of her parent’s choice. He was tall and handsome—which 
caught her fancy—though austere, intellectual, and twice her age. 
He gave her a restrained but adoring affection. While she—flatter¬ 
ed at his desiring a “chit of a girl” like herself for his wife—admired, 
almost reverenced, him. But there was no companionship for either 
of them. Fortunately for her happiness, he did not live long after 
the birth of their son, to whom he gave his own name. She dared 
not object, though she could not endure the stiff, uncomprising ap- 


G6 


TRAPPED 


pellation for her exquisite baby. She wept over it in secret—longing 
to call him Lionel, iCyril or Geoffrey, and (avoided it by 
using pet terms even after he was grown. It was also her husband 
who selected the “career” for Amos; declaring public life the pro¬ 
fession where brains tell most quickly, and where fame and honor 
accompany success. 

In the early days of her widowhood, her only dynamic idea was 
to carry out the wishes of her spouse—whose memory she revered 
with the full force of her imagination. This occasioned the move 
to London. As time passed, she merely guided the bright, manly 
little fellow, to the path so long before chosen for him—though the 
boy thought the selection his own. 

While Mrs. Russell was imagining herself a forlorn widow, re¬ 
fusing to entertain friends or even to return calls, she was really as 
completely happy with her Amos, as a child with her first big doll. 
Having an income sufficiently large to take no thought for to-morrow, 
she lavished, not only her love but her money, unwisely on her a- 
dored son. When Mr. Holt suggested sending Amos to Eton—the 
mere thought of the separtion almost caused heart-failure. The 
proposal of Oxford, was followed by a similar attack. She consid¬ 
ered such an evidence of affection very beautiful. That it might be 
extreme selfishness, never occurred to her, nor to Amos. Though 
he, boy like, should have been glad “to try it for a while.” But his 
mother’s startled horror caused him quickly to affirm his preference 
to remain at home under tutors. The subject was never again 
broached. So they two had lived happily together for years and 
years—and now she was gone! And he was left utterly alone in the 
world. This was a contingency she had not considered. And was 
she now, in another sphere, enduring her hell by witnessing the re¬ 
sult of her selfish devotion? Possibly—though let us hope not. To 
her son she always remained the embodiment of every perfection. 

As Amos now stood searching the beautiful child-face, he felt 
that she would know just what to say to comfort him and to set 
him right with the world—meaning himself and Margery, though 
he dared not risk her name even in his thoughts. Suddenly his des¬ 
olation over-came him, as in a very flame of memory—it scorched 
so—he recalled his mother’s death and those frist terrible weeks of 
his sorrow before Margery came to bless and brighten his life. And 
now she—she scorned him. She held him in contempt! 

He turned hotly and tramped the length of the rooms many times. 

When somewhat calmer he paused again in front of the picture. 
A thousand varying emotions seemed at conflict within his soul. The 
cause, or foundation, of only a few of them did he even vaguely un¬ 
derstand. At last he realized that this problem—his oath—was a 
man’s task. If he looked longer into those gentle eyes he might be 
tempted to swerve from his decision,—a thing no gentleman could 
do. As he started to move away, it suddenly came to him that he 


TRAPPED 


67 


was renouncing his career,—the career which they planned to¬ 
gether. To the boy this was an appalling thought. Kenneth de¬ 
fending the standard of Jeresalem was not more torn between two 
duties, than was Amos—who now for the first time since making 
his vow, hesitated. 

As he stood eying the portrait, he began to realize that he had 
expected to return to the X. Y. Z. office, after he had grown ac¬ 
customed to the thought of Margery’s marriage, and to continue the 
work for which he had been so carefully prepared. There was glory 
in sacrificing self to win Margery’s respect, but to immolate his 
career to disappoint his mother’s hopes—His heart-strings tugged 
in his breast. He sank limply into a chair, still staring at the paint¬ 
ing. 

# wa s a tremendous thing to Amos, if not to the world, this 
flying off at a tangent to follow an ignis-fatuus, labeled, “winning 
back my own self-respect and that of the woman I love.” In spite 
of the curious twist given to his judgment by “early associations,” 
he saw clearly that he might not succeed in this undertaking; that 
for him there might be death—or worse—instead of decoration. 
About this he entertained no illusions. He half regretted that he 
had not asked merely for a leave. That would have held and drawn 
him back to his position. For the first time he wondered if giving 
it up even temporarily, were not a kind of desertion; for he knew 
Clarence Holt used his well stored mind as a reference library. 
“What if Mr. Holt will not take me back when I—if—I return?” He 
paused a moment. “Or, if there should be a change in the govern¬ 
ment during my absence—I—I might never again reach even the posi¬ 
tion I now occupy.” 

This was a fearful thought. Yet the glamour of his romantic 
Jove, rendered keeping his vow imperatively necessary. He walked 
the lenght of the room, then back again, before asking: “Mother dear, 
shall I become what you were ever anxious I should never be,— 
a drifting failure?” 

He almost waited for a reply. Then caught his breath, and 
hastened to assure himself, “I am not abandoning my career. I am 
only leaving it to prove that I am not a—a weakling.” 

Merely thinking of the word, which he would not pronounce a- 
gainst himself,—although alone in the house, made him blush with 
resentment. But the thought stiffened him. He rose quickly and 
stood before the portrait. 

“You want me to prove myself a man; ok, Mother darling, I know 
you do.” 

Then fearing to argue the point with those tender eyes upon him, 
he turned swiftly from the room; and taking his seat at his desk be¬ 
gan slowly to write. His thoughts surged in waves of protest. 

“I have been wronged. Anyone knowing the circumstances will 
agree to that... .“In this way I strike a double blow... .“It is the only 


TRAPPED 


68 

way to cause her to realize how I have suffered.... It will compel 
her to think of me some times.... She can never again look on me 
as—as craven.... Above all things Florence Flemming—er—Hope, 
ehall acknowledge that I am not the—dastard—she thought me.” 

“Y-e-s,” with a sigh, “this is the only way.” Then briskly, “No 
weakling could do this thing. It will take brains as well as grit; 
and certainly a considerable amount of suffering, and—and much 
humiliation. Am I equal to it?” 

Already in imagination he was enduring all the agony which he 
knew the step would entail. As a vivid flare of lightning illumines 
a long stretch of roadway, so Amos in a flash saw himself, not only 
forced from the shell into which his shyness had encased him, as he 
passed from youth to manhood, but, to keep his oath, this shell of 
reserve would have to be shattered. Fulfilling his vow would not 
only necessitate meeting men of his own age, but —worse—he should 
be obliged to make advances and to fraternize with them! He 
wiped the cold sweat from his brow, as he exclaimed under his breath: 

“Good Lord! When I haven’t the faintest idea how to start inf 
But—I shall learn.” 

He could imagine himself easily preforming “the grand act” 
when the heroic moment arrived. But the grinding drugery of pre¬ 
paration—the “mixing with the boys” and “giving as good as they 
sent”—his whole soul recoiled with horror from the thought. And 
he had absolutely not one experience to back up his resolution or to 
prove to himself that he had it in him to do it. But only for a mo¬ 
ment did he waver. Then his chin regained its old firmness. His 
reply came staunch and clear, “I am equal to it. Of that I am sure.” 

As he laid down his pen, it did not occur to Amos that he was 
foolishly romantic—melodramatic. He did not dream that he was 
acting as a story-book hero of a hundred years ago, or that his 
thoughts were following in the footsteps of century old paragons— 
who were indeed his only early friends. To him, his course seemed 
the only honorable one to pursue. 

For a moment he sat thinking, a frown wrinkling his brow as 
his eyes sought the floor. Gradually the rigidity of his face relaxed, 
as he nodded, and unconsciously spoke—this time very softly: 

“Yes, yes; there are many kinds of revenge. Or am I merely 
avenging?-At any rate this is the only way—and I shall succeed.” 

After a long pause he dreamily repeated: 

“ ‘And if we do but wait the hour 
There never yet was human power 
Which could resist, if unforgiven, 

The secret watch, the vigil long, 

Of him who treasures up a wrong.’ ” 

And then, as the darkness of the evening enclosed him, this at- 


TRAPPED 


69 


titude of almost medieval absurdity faded, and once more he was only 
a very lonely and heart-broken boy, who wanted, With all his soul, 
to sob out his sorrow on a sympathic shoulder. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

The Other Man Dims, the Charm of the Amulet. 

Dallas Hope, concealing the locket in his handkerchief, slipped 
both in his pocket as he sat down beside his fellow officer, Ralph 
Loring. 

“A pretty girl,” remarked Loring, admiringly. 

“My sister,” replied Hope shortly. 

“Why didn’t you kiss her good-by, then?” laughed the officer 
with a teasing dig in the ribs. 

“Shut up!” grinned Dallas, pulling his cap over his eyes. “I’m 
sleepy.” “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!” the train thundered. 

“Don’t disturb his dreams!” cautioned Ralph, winking at his 
companions. They chuckled as they opened their papers for a 
glance at the news before reaching port. 

Usually Hope kept up the spirits of the whole company. There¬ 
fore his silence was the more noticeable. The officers exchanged 
glances which intimated that “something had happened.” Until 
confidences had been exchanged, however, it was a point of honor 
never to take indications seriously. Yet a man under suspicion of 
sentimental disturbance might almost gauge his popularity by the 
amount of fun poked at him. 

As the train drew into Dover, Ralph flipped Hope’s cap to the 
back of his head. “Wake up! Don’t take it so hard. Let’s get a bite 
before going on board. We’ve plenty of time.” 

“All right,” agreed Dallas promptly, following Loring out of the 
compartment. “Order anything you like,” he continued as he stood 
on the crowded platform, “I’ll be along by the time soup is served.” 

“Napoleon-like he wants to drop her a line from the first post,” 
suggested the Captain. 

“Extraordinary how fond some men are of their sisters.” 

“Stop your racket,” cried Dallas good naturedly, but vexed with 
himself for blushing. 

“Sonny boy,” Ralph patted him on the shoulder, “don’t go very 
f ar —and don’t get to dreaming and forget the object of our voyage!” 

“Remember the boat sails in ten minutes after the second whis¬ 
tle,” teased the captain. 

“I’m going to order a good English feed for myself—for yau—a 
—er—slice of Angel’s Food?” 

They whirled round the corner of the building laughing. 

Hope sought the sunny side of the station, because the glare 


70 


TRAPPED 


left it deserted. He turned his back on the world, with a smile on 
his handsome mouth as he recalled how quickly Margery responded to 
his appeal to “ward off bullets.” “I know how to put it to a girl,’* 
he admitted proudly. Carefully he opened the handkerchief, but in 
spite of himself his fingers trembled with excitement. The locket 
fell into the palm of his hand, and as he saw the Almont crest blazing 
on it, he stared. What did it contain? 

“I’ll guess a four-leaved clover—or possibly the hair of a saint.” 

He touched the spring—and gave a cry of pleasure as Margery’s 
face met his astonished gaze. She looked just as she had the even¬ 
ing before—her red-gold hair coiled low on her head, and soft curls 
about her flower-like face. She smiled at him with her eyes—and 
a suspicion of a dimple—but not with her lips. Her mouth was 
serious—or only demure? He kissed it suddenly—again and again. 
It was made for kisses—no question about that! Then he looked 
about shamefacedly. No one had noticed. Since the war—if he had 
been kissing the girl herself it would have awakened nothing but a 
sigh of sympathy. 

As he closed the locket the monogram flashed in the sun light. 
He shaded it with his shoulder and tried to decipher it. “A. K,” he 
saw very plainly—or was it “K. A?” By no turn of the locket, or 
of his imagination could he make M out of it. 

“This certainly is the Almont crest and coat of arms,” he re¬ 
flected with a growing dissatisfaction. 

How did the girl happen to be wearing a picture of herself a- 
round her neck? Then the workmanship was exquisite. “It is the 
kind of trinket that you give to your very dearest.” A sting of 
jealousy supplied the dearest. “It was made for some man.” 

It hurt him more than he had known anything could hurt. He 
fixed his eyes on the horizon, on the station pavement, finally stoic¬ 
ally on the wall. He shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and dropped 
the locket in his coat pocket; he crossed his knees and carelessly 
swung his foot, declaring that he cared nothing about it. But he did 
care. The more he thought about it—the more he cared. He opened 
the locket and studied the face again. He decided it had been re¬ 
cently painted. 

“She wore her hair this way last night; and no girl of her age 
clings to the same style more than—six months.” As he stared—an¬ 
other picture—Margery’s long lashes shading her cheek, which 
flushed as she caught his look of admiration—blotted out the locket. 
“If it were made for another man, they have had a quarrel. Cer¬ 
tainly it was made before she met me.” He pressed the locket tight 
in his hand. “She has given it to me, and I shall not believe she 
loves another man until she tells me.” 

The relief with which this flooded him was utterly unreasonable. 

“I shall wear it on the chain when I go into battle.” 

With another thrill—as unreasonable—he remembered she had 


TRAPPED 


71 


told him that she would pray for him. “I hope she prays often,” 
he exclaimed boyishly, as he darted after his companions. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Lady Florence Serves Tea, With a Sauce of Kaiserism. 

Lord Dalhousie was scowling at the Evening News when Lord 
Robert Carnes was announced. 

“Have you read it?” Dalhousie asked, shaking the headlines at 
him instead of shaking hands. “It is an outrage to publish such 
things unless they are true—” 

“I have read it.” Lord Carnes declined the paper with a gesture. 
“I know it is true—and more— far more. I know it from what I 
witnessed as I came back from Baden-Baden.” 

“You never mentioned it.” 

“It was not a pleasant thing to talk about. It has almost driven 
me mad—knowing it all—and not being able to end this war.” He 
changed the subject with an eager question, “Has my request been 
granted?” 

“Not yet,” replied Lord Dalhousie regretfully. “I did my best” 

“Not yet!” repeated Carnes despairingly. “The enemy burning 
villages, and shooting the inhabitants as they try to escape from the 
flames!” 

“What!” Lord Dalhousie cried. 

“You will hear of it—all of it later— when the war ends. Ger¬ 
many is entrenching herself in France, for the same horrors. I could 
stop it all if they would only let me, Dalhousie. The government 
might at least give me a trial.” 

“You must admit, Robert, your request is an unusual one; and 
the British prefer doing things in the good old way.” 

“In the old way, I grant you, but not the good. Am I to have 
no chance at all? Is France to suffer as Belgium has?” Lord Carnes 
caught the expression of his friend’s face. “Do you doubt me— 
Robert?” 

“Not your intentions—” 

“But my ability,” finished Lord) Carnes. 4< Has nothing I’ve told 
you made any impression?” 

“They have agreed to consider it next week,” evaded Lord Dal¬ 
housie. “They have a plan of their own to try first.” 

“Next week! And those atrocities going on! Do you think the 
enemy will sit down and dlo nothing for a week?” 

“You think of their plan, about as they do of yours. Honors 
are easy between you.” Dalhousie tried to smile. 

“I could have saved Louvain—Brussels! If they wait too long 
Paris will be lost. Is this their policy?” 


72 


TRAPPED 


“My dear Robert! I know nothing of their policy. It was not 
their intention to sacrifice Belgium....” 

Before he could finish the sentence, the countess entered, a news¬ 
paper in her hand, and excited anger in her eyes. 

“Have you read it?” When both nodded, she continued, “It's 
a denial of their right to be called civilized! Their boasted Kultur 
in only a veneer. They are the same savages they were a thousand 
years ago; if the papers state facts.” 

“I am afraid they are sadly understating facts, my dear Lady 
Florence,” said Carnes, despairingly. 

The countess flung herself into a chair, and threw her hat 
on a table beside her, as if exhausted by her day’s work. 

Margery in the library, apparently reading a novel, but seeing 
between her and the pages, a pair of ocean-blue eyes, heard Lady 
Florence’s voice, and joined her and the gentlemen, as the tea cart 
appeared. She saw at a glance how tired the countess was, and be¬ 
gan to serve the tea. 

“The Kaiser declares—and the people believe him—that the 
powers opposing Germany are warring on her because they are 
jealous of her.” 

Tired as she was Lady Florence leaned back in her chair and 
laughed heartily. “Jealous of Germany! That’s too absurd.” 

“Germany is a very young country, you know.” 

“And you think youthfully indiscreet?” 

“Something like that;” Lord Carnes smiled wearily, as he re¬ 
ceived a cup from Margery. “We laugh at the American parvenu 
when he tries to dazzle us with his newly acquired wealth. Is it more 
ridiculous than this flaunting of ‘German Kultur?’ He must call 
attention to his new toy so that it may be observed.” 

Margery turned an interested face on Lord Carnes, and he 
went on. “Other nations in Europe have excelled in the arts, sci¬ 
ences, philosophy, and industries, for hundreds of years, and so it 
never occurs to us to advertise it. The world—amused at Germany’s 
claims—has not contradicted them. They have no scientists the equal 
of Edison, or even Graham Bell; yet when Germany asserts she is 
the most scientific nation on the globe, America does not contradict 
her. They publish everything they do, and other countries copy their 
fulsome praise of themselves—with aditions. Instead of being jeal¬ 
ous, the world has been proud of Germany’s rapid progress—until 
now.” 

“The present Kaiser did it all,” Remarked Lord Dalhousie—“two 
lumps,my dear. When he came to the throne—young and full of 
fire and with the ambitions of Frederick the Great—Germany was 
not—in the full sense of the word—a united people. Each of the 
states felt over-shadowed by Prussia, and looked on it rather as 
the provinces of Greece did at one time on Sparta. Bavaria still 
nursed her resentment for the sacrifice of her troops in 1870. Few 


TRAPPED 


73 


cared for the ‘Blood and iron’ policy of Bismark, though all admired 
and many loved William I. and his son, who unfortunately died 
young. The Germany of to-day is not that Germany. They were 
dreamers of dreams and poetry, full of sentiment, plilosophers, sci¬ 
entists in the true sense of the word. They loved books, music, sim¬ 
ple pleasures/’ 

“What would Heine think if he could see Germany now?” Lord 
Carnes asked. 

“He would grieve that Germany’s fidelity has out Eckharted 
Eckhart’.” agreed Dalhousie. “As some one says*, ‘The base Burgund 
is as nothing compared with this bloody Hohenzollern’—the present 
War Lord. He has slain her children by the thousands and will 
slay thousands more. But so inexhaustible is their loyalty that they 
are still faithful.’ The awful dance of death and destruction in the 
name of ‘me und Gott’ is whirling the world towards the bottomless 
pit.' I don’t recall who said this but it is true.” 

“I believe the Duke of Wellington said ‘Habit is ten times 
nature,’ Lord Carnes suggested, “The Kaiser has proven it. He has 
taken dreamers and made them military; and scientists—who above 
all men love free thought—and made them slavish. They are no 
longer independent thinkers. The Kaiser announces what they must 
think, and they think it. The whole German people now follow the 
will of the Kaiser, as a kitten does a string.” 

He paused, and looked at Lady Florence. 

“Until this last visit, Countess, I have not been in Germany for 
nearly thirty years. I was amazed at the change of sentiment. The 
very porters boasted of their culture and the discipline of the army 
that enslaves them.” 

“Surely they don’t think we are jealous of their lack of freedom,” 
suggested the countess. 

“They don’t recognize their slavery. They call it patriotism.” 

Lady Florence looked surprised. 

“You said the Kaiser did it all,” she remarked to Lord Dalhousie. 
“It seems an enormous task for one man to accomplish.” 

“He must be accredited with that. He has obsessed the nation 
with this false patriotism—this lust for military power. He began 
in the schools. The children were taught patriotism. If a teacher 
did not approve the system, he was removed. Nothing, was too big, 
nothing too small, for the Kaiser to undertake and see that it was 
thoroughly executed. He inherited an unproductive soil in a rig¬ 
orous climate. From organizing an army, building a navy, and es¬ 
tablishing factories, he moved to fertilizing the fields. Each tene¬ 
ment dweller had the privilege of. planting a tiny garden; and was 
furnished seeds, if he were too poor to buy them. The entire coun- 


*(Capt. John McNeily in The Vicksburg Herald.) 


74 


TRAPPED 


try became a bee-hive of industry. Everything was done under his 
supervision—and for his own glory.” 

“The world looked on with interest and admiration;” smiled 
Lord Carnes, “laughing a bit at the Kaiser’s opera bouffe rattle of 
sabres, his ‘divine right’ boasting, and his cramming love of country 
down the throats of the rising generation, while he put his army 
through the paces of the goose step!” 

The countess and her brother laughed softly. Margery did not. 
She remembered the Kaiser on horse-back in his gorgeous uniform, 
in Berlin, the streets thronged, the multitude applauding, as he 
touched his regal helmet and smiled upon them. She recalled her 
thrill, as she—a tiny little girl—stood up in their carriage and joy¬ 
ously clapped her hands as he passed. She felt again his magnetic 
personality, heard his wonderful voice, clear, sweet, convincing; as he 
announced that God had given him kingship, that he owed 1 it to ni> 
man—nor set of men—and was answerable to God alone for his 
stewardship. She had always thought him the grandest of mon- 
archs, and understood the truth of what Lord Carnes had said of 
him. She had thought his magnificent army one of the great things 
of earth. ;She realized that she had received these impressions be¬ 
cause, as a child, she had lived in Germany. ,She shivered a little. 
And his splendid army was now proving an infernal machine to de¬ 
stroy the flower of her own land—to endanger Dallas Hope—soon 
to be somewhere in France. Her demi-god had proven clay. Yet— 
would his people discover it? She drank her tea in silence as she 
wondered. 

“For years,” Lord Carnes added, “the Kaiser has not only viewed 
himself through a microscope, but has held it up for his subjects 
to magnify him, themselves, and their country. Of course all 
they viewed was immense, grand! When he turned the magnifying 
glass to view other countries, the result was equally satisfactory— 
there was only a blur—and a very small one. It added enormously 
to their self-complacency.” 

“What could have been his object in deceiving them?” asked 
Margery mystified. 

“To hold them in his iron grasp he had to flatter them. It 
pleased their vanity to hear that other countries were jealous of them. 

“He seems wonderfully successful,” said the countess. “They 
are the most egotistical nation alive. I wonder what was the begin¬ 
ning of it all.” 

“His insignificance compared with others, when he came to the 
throne. He saw other rulers—his relatives, enjoying luxuries he 
could not afford. Who knows how agonizing this was to him? We 
can only see that he determined to possess—the earth and the ful¬ 
ness thereof. After almost a lifetime of patient struggle he has 
passed other nations in the ‘world-power’ race, and like little Jack Hor¬ 
ner, exclaims ‘What a great boy am I.’ What is more natural than for 


TRAPPED 


75 


him to imagine that others are now envying him? He has taught 
the people this. He not only understood the pyschological power 
of habit, but of repitition.” 

“As the American Mr. Dooley says,” interjected Lord Dalhousie, 
Til belave onything, if ye only tell it to me often enough.’ I suppose 
the Kaiser has told his poor sheep that their Kultur is the only cul¬ 
ture, till they really believe it. That ‘they were appointed of God 
to lead other nations’—and the next step would be easy—to show 
them that other races were inferiors. The keynote to this man’s 
character is self-exaltation. He has cultivated this unlovable trait 
in his people, who were formerly altogether decent.” 

“It is all so new to them that they are drunk with the vanity 
of being a nation,” cried the countess rising. “Come Margery, you 
look tired, and I am worn out. We have an engagement this even¬ 
ing, and we must rest before time to dress.” 

In the upper hall, Lady Florence stroked Margery’s bright head. 

“Child don’t be so utterly miserable. You are young—get all the 
pleasure possible out of every day. 

“There is so much suffering”—hesitated Margery with quivering 

lips. 

“We can only serve by keeping ourselves fit. Run along and 
take a nap. We are to dine with your Aunt Caroline—and then go to 
a theatre party.” She pushed the girl toward her room affection¬ 
ately. 

“Oh, yes,” she called, “be sure to wear some of the flowers that 
came, I could not find a card—but of course they are from Clarence 
Holt—and a box of candy—That had his card. Write him a nice 
little note of thanks.” 

“I’ve not seen either,” cried the girl, hurrying into her room. 

She lifted fragrant pink roses from a florist’s box. 

Dallas sent them! She knew—without a word! This wonderful 
knowing! It thrilled—and it was so sure. She would thank Holt 
for the candy—conventional—and costly! But the roses! Never! 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Margery Reaches the Parting of the Ways. 

When Margery entered the breakfast room she found Lady 
Florence and her two guests with flushed, excited faces. The toast 
and coffee were cooling, while they read hideous snatches from the 
morning newspapers. 

Margery gained only a confused sense of horror, punctuated by 
a gigantic horror rising here and there out of the mass. At Aershot 
the fourteen year-old son of the Burgomaster had killed an officer, 
at Vise civilians fired on the soldiers, and both villages had been 


76 


TRAPPED 


destroyed. At Louvain, the Teutons and allies had agreed to terms 
and the town had surrendered, their arms taken—but it too had been 
destroyed. 

“This is as infamous an act as the destruction of Carthage by 
the Romans; they will go down in history hand in hand,” declared the 
countess. “But listen, Margery, ‘In Rouen one thousand inhabitants 
were killed on the streets while attempting to gain shelter. A million 
exiles, most of them on foot, are seeking refuge—anywhere, to escape 
the Germans. Namur, Dinant, Malines, Louvain, Tremonde and 
Belson were not destroyed by drunk-mad soldiers—but by the 
superior authority of the Kaiser.” 

“The superior authority of the Kaiser” echoed Margery, inexpres¬ 
sibly shocked—“he is worse than Nero!” He must have a touch of 
the Hohenzollern insanity. No sane man would issue such a crazy 
order!” 

“It is not insanity at all,” said Dalhousie wrathfully, “It is the 
rage of a child who breaks his toys to vent his spleen. “It’s loath¬ 
some spite, because Belgium—held them back from rushing to Paris 
in their prophecied week’s campaign. Belgium has saved Europe and 
lost herself—the noblest sacrifice in all history.” 

“These atrocities place Germany beyond the pale of civilization. 
The recruiting stations will be crowded to-day in response to Lord 
Kitchener’s call to arms;” said the countess, who seemed to have for¬ 
gotten her coffee utterly. 

Lord Carnes crumbled his toast with no thought of consuming 
it. Margery struggled to drink a glass of milk, she felt an atom of 
solid food would choke her. 

“I shall have to be away for several weeks, Margery,” said 
Lady Florence, in a tone of regret, “establishing schools for train¬ 
ing nurses. I am sorry, for I dare say you will have a stupid time.” 

“Don’t think about me,” exclaimed the girl, surprised that such 
an announcement did not depress her. “I shall miss you dreadfully— 
but I—don’t believe I should enjoy the dances—so very much—when 
these terrible things are happening.” 

She glanced at the clock, and rose hastily. 

The countess followed her gaze. “I’ll take you in my electric.” 

On the way down town, she told Margery that the artist Dering 
wanted to paint her; and that as long as Lord Dalhousie was with 
her, she could go in the evenings to any functions to which he would 
take her. 

A deep depression settled upon Margery as she began her trans¬ 
lations. The papers heralded victories for the Allies, but her tele¬ 
grams told of the steady advance of the enemy. The accounts of the 
carnage were terrible, and the lists of dead and wounded were long— 
much longer than would be published—just at first. 

When she carried her translations to Russell’s former office, 
she found him still absent. 


TRAPPED 


77 


He is staying away—because I am here/’ she thought, her eyes 
swimming with tears as she came back to her desk. ‘T have acted 
as cruelly as a German.” 

She forgot altogether that she had settled the matter as one she 
could not help and must not weep over. She laid her head on her 
table and wept. Then she heard one of the girls telling another in 
a low tone, that she must have seen the name of some one she knew in 
the dead list. She dried her eyes; screened by a newspaper, drew 
forth her beauty box and carefully powdered her nose and lids. At this 
moment she saw Clarence Holt appearing at the other end of the long 
room. Someway she felt she could not possibly meet him. She 
slipped out; and though it lacked a few minutes of the time for her 
to leave, put on her hat and hurried into the sunlight. 

She walked aimlessly along, and was recalled to the street by 
the discordant beating on an old tin pan. It was suspended by a string 
around the neck of the “drummer boy”, as a company of children, from 
ten to mere toddlers, most of them boys—and all brave with paper 
caps—marched sedately by her. She had to smile. They were all over 
London, she knew. Wherever you wandered you met these marching 
youngsters. 

Suddenly the company forgot to obey orders, or the captain to 
give them. All lined up along a fence and peered through eagerly. 
Margery glanced over their heads, and also stopped. In a school 
yard she saw a number of young women making fires, boiling water 
without smoking it, preparing food, and practicing other field work, 
under the directions of a Red Cross instructor. 

“They are going to the front,” explained a pleasant-faced woman 
who had stopped 1 to watch the fire blaze upward under the water. 

Margery saw her way out of the remorse that was hedging her in 
at the X. Y. Z. office—saw an untried, but a clean—cut, path stretch¬ 
ing before her. 

She opened the gate and spoke to one of the nurese. 

“I wish to go to the front,” she said earnestly. To herself 
she was saying, “Then Amos can return to his career—that will be off 
my conscience, thank goodness—and I shall be rid of Mr. Holt for¬ 
ever!” She did not realize that the last thought seemed to have 
found itself as a ready-made decision among her reflections. 

“You are very young”—replied the nurse, looking her over. 

“Have you had experience?” asked an elder woman, “you look 
very slight for such work.” 

“I may appear younger than I am,” said Margery, “I am nine¬ 
teen; and I studied three years at the school of Arts and Sciences.” 

“Many of our best nurses were trained there,” said the woman in 


78 


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a changed tone. “In that case you will no doubt be accepted. When 
do you wish to go?” 

“Immediately, if possible.” The relief that the idea was bringing 
to Margery made her want the change instantly. 

“Walk in, and knock at the second door to the right.” 

Margery returned to the nurses and their fires with the lightest 
heart she had known since the day she played the joke on Amos 
Russell. 

“They accepted me,” she said brightly, “and I am to leave at 
once.” 


CHAPTER XX. 

Mr. Holt Thinks of Oakhurst, While Lord Carnes Suggests 
a Plan to Win the War. 

When Margery told the countess what she had done, that usually 
well poised woman was speechless* She looked at Margery, a typical 
product of England’s gentle-bred youth, and wondered what her de¬ 
licate hands and girl-brain could do in the maelstrom of horror in 
Belgium and France. 

The girl took advantage of the lady’s silence to add: “I gave 
you as my reference. They passed me without a word when they 
heard that I had been trained in the A. and S. You know, in the 
hospital they always said I was a born nurse.” Margery said this 
very persuasively. 

As her pet enterprise, the School of Arts and Sciences, wheeled 
into view—and in the dignity of preparing young women to serve 
England at the front—Lady Florence instantly decided there were 
two sides to this question. Margery was an undeveloped, slight girl, 
but she had had years of thorough training, and was equipped to 
meet hospital exigencies. 

Besides, the daring courage of the act proved the girl was not 
the frivolous doll—which her beauty might have engendered. 

“Those ugly daughters of Lady Caroline’s will be green with envy 
for not thinking of this first,” flashed through the mind of the 
countess. “Yet they have all had their noses in the air at the idea of 
Margery, or any other gentle-bred girl, training in my school.” So 
complicated are the delicate scales of woman’s civilized niceties, that 
this reflection decided the question. 

iShe took Margery in her arms and kissed her. “You are a self- 
sacrificing child. The Queen will be proud of you when she hears 
of it.” 

Margery blushed ecstatically. She had feared a scene. 

“And you leave to-morrow?” 

“Yes, to-morrow. They took my measures for my uniforms, and 


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I gave orders for everything I shall need—though of course it is not 
much.” 

“I shall wait and see you off,” said the countess. “When a young 
girl starts on a mission of this kind it is well for the world to know 
that she is not seeking newspaper notoriety, and that her guardians 
approve. I will tell our friends that you were prepared at the A. and 
S. and believed it your duty to go.” 

Margery felt guilty. She knew it was to escape the ordeal of 
finding Amos and setting things right with him, that had prompted 
her offer. She blushed a deeper pink, and as she hesitated over con¬ 
fessing it, the psychological moment passed. For Lord Carnes en¬ 
tered, and Lady Florence told him of her god-daughter’s decision. 

He looked wistfully as he held the young girl’s hand and wished 
her a blessing in her task. 

Mr. Clarence Holt has agreed to come to luncheon,” Lady Flor¬ 
ence told her guest. 

Lord Carnes lighted up. “I must have everything ready for him 
he said quickly. “Perhaps he—may....” 

And he went quickly out. 

“You know Lord Carnes has a plan that he wants the war de¬ 
partment to use,” the countess said confidentially. “Bertram says it 
is really great, if it will work out. We are trying to induce Mr. Holt 
to listen to him, and if he thinks well of the scheme, to bring it be¬ 
fore the proper persons. Be as delicious to him as possible. There 
is nothing like keeping a man in a good humor when you are going 
to ask a favor of him. Run—now, and change to something white.” 

The countess received Holt. While her attention was riveted 
upon the heel of the sock she was turning, she incidentaly spoke of 
the magnificence of Oakhurst—and the jewels Margery was too young 
to wear. Yet she caught the pleased light which flamed for a moment 
in Holt’s pale but expressive eyes. She could not possibly know that 
he was thinking! 

“It was fortunate about asking her to drive. I only wish I 
had pressed a few more attentions on her.” A glance into a mirror 
on the wall deepened his opinion that he did not look over forty. Even 
his enemies admitted that his touch of distinction was better than 
mere good-looks. While he smiled at the countess, he convinced 
himself that he had always intended marrying the girl. 

Margery’s new determination gave her beauty a spirited charm, 
and some way—now that she was sure of leaving—she felt no shy¬ 
ness of the head of the department. They were chatting informally 
when the countess slipped away; and Lord Carnes was not a welcome 
interruption to Holt. 

Scarcely were they seated at the table, when Holt, in the habit 


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of leading the conversation at dinner parties, asked: “Do you think, as 
so many do, that this war proves Christianity a failure?” 

He hoped his religious interest would make a good impression 
on the girl, who might have doubted his previous attentions. 

“By no means,” countered Dalhousie. “The Christian religion 
must not merely be taught—it must be lived. We are called Christ¬ 
ians principally because we wear and follow Western fashions. The 
most of us live the teachings of Christ very sparingly. In selecting 
our public men, we rarely consider morals—and as for spirituality..” 
he left the question in the air. 

“The truly good are so seldom our most intellectual men,” ob¬ 
jected Holt, “a country should be governed by its wisest citizens.” 

“If all were properly trained in early youth, the Christian vir¬ 
tues might bloom in the wise as well as the unwise,” smiled Dalhousie. 

Clarence felt he was not shining as he had hoped. Since he was 
in, however, he must flounder out. “Has any nation ever been able 
to live up to the ethics of the Christ?” he inquired of Lord Dalhousie. 

“No, but that only proves the degeneracy of man—not a flaw in 
Christianity. It also proves its God-source. If we understood the 
Creator he would not be our God. While calling ourselves Christ¬ 
ians we do the most unchristian things.” 

“For instance?” 

“We pray the Prince of Peace for victory in war!” His eyes 
twinkled as he added, “about as Christian as Philip II, of Spain who 
implored the Lord to bless him and his army and navy, and cast his 
enemies into hell. We should not ask the Lord to be on our side; we 
must get on His side.” 

There was a moment’s silence. The countess prayed almost hour¬ 
ly for the victory of the Allies. “Bertram,” she said softly,“some¬ 
times our enemies are the enemies of the Lord. ‘By their fruits ye 
shall know them.’ We are now on God’s side and fighting for 
truth, justice and brotherly love.” 

A ripple went round the table. It was so palpably evident to 
what the countess referred; and her single common-sense stroke dis¬ 
posed of argument. 

“Those who claim to rule by divine right are the very nations 
who brought on this frightful war,” said Lord Carnes. 

“Germany knew she was ready—as was no one else. She simply 
seized on the Servia-Austria assassination as a pretext. So there 
you are,” Holt was on sure ground here. “No other such opportunity 
for pouncing on an undefended world might occur in—many blue 
moons. The War Lords expected to be in Paris by this time, you 
know.” 

“Except for poor little Belgium, they would,” said Margery, her 


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81 


eyes filling with tears. She looked particularly enchanting with 
dewy lids. 

Holt felt a wild desire to catch her in his arms and kiss away 
the tears. 

“I am r eally in love,” he thought complacently. “My town house 
is all I could desire fo r a city home,” his thoughts ran on swiftly, 
“but every public man need’s a country seat—and Oakhurst is a gem. 
She is just the wife for me.” This time as he looked at the girl the 
sweep of her lashes was not lost on his aesthetic sense. 

“Neutrals, at first, may have hesitated as to who was right in 
this war;” observed the countess, “but since Louvain and the other 
frightfulness, there is no doubt as to who is wrong. We should add 
to our litany—‘From all such Kultur—good Lord deliver us!’ ” 

They all laughed. 

“The matter with Germany is muzzling the press,” said Holt. 
“The people have no opportunity of learning the truth about them¬ 
selves, or other nations. This war is a conflict of ideals and prin¬ 
cipals—not mere commercial interests. I don’t believe territory 
has anything to do with it. And we are not fighting for ourselves 
only—this is really a world’s war. It means the ultimate victory of 
liberty or of despotism. In future the people must be free to govern 
themselves, or—as some one has said, ‘become a part of a great mili¬ 
tary machine with all the force of modern invention to aid in holding 
them down, and suppressing their will. Europe was trapped into 
this war by Germany’s peace talk’. We understand her now. Here¬ 
after such a thing will be impossible.” 

Margery’s eyes were upon Holt. His voice was clear and convinc¬ 
ing. He felt at last he was making the desired impression. So, in 
order to hold that sweet girlish interest, he swept on. 

“A victory for Germany would be far worse than a return to 
Egyptian slavery. The Allies are fighting for the freedom of the 
people of Germany as well as for that of the balance of the world. 
If we win—and we will eventually—it means disarmament.” 

“If the Dual Alliance?” faltered Margery. 

“God help the world! It will mean that each country must, in the 
future, be ready to fight Germany at a moment’s notice—or without 
notice, as Belgium was called to fight. It will mean each country 
keeping a big army at war strenght all the time—or be subdued and 
made to pay tribute. But we are going to win this war. Never 
dream for one moment that we will give up.. We are in to a finish. 
We will fight till liberty triumphs. Until now, when the War Lords— 
Thotmes III, Alexander, Napoleon—went forth to conquer the world, 
they overcame each country as they reached it, and swept on to the 
next. But electricity and the printing press help the world to-day 
to combine and to resist the War Lords. So the Kaiser will be crushed. 
In the future he will be watched and understood. After the war, 
too, small nations will possess rights. You see we are fighting for 


82 


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the freedom of the whole earth. Lovers of liberty from every land 
will flock to us—and inevitably—America will have to take her stand 
with us. Lord Kitchener says this is going to be a long war-” 

“No,” interrupted Lord Carnes, a bright spot in each cheek, “I 
have a plan....” 

“My dear Lord Carnes,” laughed Holt, “every man in England 
seems to have a plan for ending this war. If you could only see the 
piles of letters we receive every day....” 

“Then why don’t you try some of them?” asked Lady Florence 
persuasively. 

“We have no time to read them,” replied Holt protestingly. 
”We dump them into the waste basket.” And he smiled at Margery 
as if she understood. 

The countess led the way back to the drawing followed by Mar¬ 
gery and Mr. Holt. The two older men however, passed into the 
library. 

“You see how hard it is to get Holt’s serious consideration,” 
said Lord Dalhousie. 

“Yes, I see,” returned his friend tragically. “And so the car¬ 
nage must go on.” He paused and passed his hand wearily across 
his brow and quoted reverently, “ ‘Father forgive them for they know 
not what they do.’ ” 

As Lady Florence, Margery and Holt entered the drawing room, 
the telephone rang and the countess excused herself, saying she ex¬ 
pected an important call. 

Clarence Holt almost committed himself then and there. He 
would have done so in fact—as he was complpetely enthralled; but 
the “very young girl” knew to a nicety how to quell undesirable— 
if there were such a thing—declarations. She toyed gaily, but gent¬ 
ly, with her middle aged admirer; and led the conversation with 
cleverness and skill to the unconsidered plan of Lord Carnes. Even 
executing her pretty design so far as to elicit a promise from Holt, 
that, for her sake, he would have the matter well investigated, if 
such a thing were possible. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

Amos Finds a Short Cut. 

The morning following the declaration of his vow, Amos hailed a 
bus which conveyed him to a small park where companies of raw re¬ 
cruits were lined up for the first rough “setting up” exercises. 

“May I try it out before I enlist?” Amos asked. 

“Fall in,” replied the officer, “at this stage a half dozen more 
or less makes no difference. Take hold of the man next to you.” 

Six or eight other “awkward squads” in the square were going 


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83 


through the same movements. They marched, wheeled, marched 
again, up and down their appointed space. Russell knew this thing 
was going on all over London. After two hours work the last order 
to “doublequick” left Amos exhausted. His heart thumped like a 
trip hammer and he could not speak. He was terrified. 

“I have heart trouble!” he thought, “they will not let me join 
the army.” 

“You look done up. Come and get something to eat,” a com¬ 
panion called to him. 

After he had partaken of a hearty English meal with his com¬ 
rade, his heart trouble seemed to have vanished. “It may have been 
hunger,” he thought. 

It was the first complete luncheon he had eaten since he had 
told Margery that he loved her. 

In the afternoon he drilled again, went shopping, with difficulty 
procuring every article on his list, and returned home to cook his 
dinner, for which he was famished. 

He decided to engage the maid he had dismissed, so that he could 
devote all his time to his task. He opened one of the books which he 
had bought. It was about as intelligible to him as Sanskrit. “There 
is no use of my wasting an hour on it,” he thought, “but it’s all A. B. 
C. to that corporal with whom I ate.” 

“I’ll get an officer to coach me.” 

That night he slept—as the young, well-fed, physically tired, 
sleep. 

The next day he drilled all over London, driving from one place 
to another in order to rest a bit, before the following “line up” was 
formed. At each place he told the same story, about wanting to find 
out if he could be a soldier, before he enlisted. He found an officer 
who took pleasure in expounding the manual, and agreed to coach 
him—not for pay—but, if Amos insisted—there were some old debts 
that he might settle. 

The second afternoon the boy was too tired to eat the dinner 
the maid had cooked, until he had thrown himself on a couch and 
slept a while. Then he ate ravenously. 

He placed one of his new purchases—a record of bugle calls 
on his phonograph. 

“They all sound alike!” he cried in dismay—“what if I am tone 
deaf!” 

It was a fearful thought. 

He ran the record again, and was glad to note a slight difference. 
Then he played “Reveille,” again and again, until he familiarized it. 
Then he began doggedly on another. He carried the phonograph to 
his bed-room, and undressed to the music of the martial calls. “By 
to-morrow night I shall know them all,” he bragged. At this rate 


84 


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I shall be ready for the front within a week/' And for fully an 
hour he forgot his heart wreck. 

As he stretched himself in his bed, weary, but deliciously sleepy, 
he felt that he could give Lord Kitchener cards and spades and then 
lick him in preparing men for the front. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

The Magic of the Square Encloses Margery at the Railroad Station. 

As Margery, in her Red Cross uniform, stood on the station plat¬ 
form chatting with the friends who had come to see her off, she 
wondered if Dallas had felt as “lifted up” as she now did, at the fine 
thought of going to France. At that time she had thought his 
gaiety forced. Now she believed he was as glad as he appeared. 
As she set her face toward the grim realities of the “Front” with the 
intention of serving the wounded, she was suffused by a feeling she 
had never known before. She seemed to be leaving not only her old 
life—but her old self behind. 

The feeling deepened as she listened to Mr. Holt, saying, “if all 
the pretty girls were going to the front as nurses, Lord Kitchener’s 
recruiting stations would be swamped with volunteers.” The girl— 
smiling at the artist, Mr. Deering, as he appeared with a florist’s 
box in his hands—seemed somebody strange, not herself. The clatter, 
the vapid exchanges, seemed a part of something that—was already 
removed from her life. Even the appearance of the duke, her 
uncle, and his patronage, did not stir her to her usual sense of re¬ 
sentment. 

iShe knew exactly what happened when she passed into the magic 
square—entering as Margery Keblinger, and emerging as Florence 
Flemming. Here, the sense of passing from the Margery she had 
known, from the X. Y. Z. office, from all Mr. Holt stood for, and even 
kind Lady Florence, was more acute—only she did not know just 
what she would be. A great and new kindling ran through her— 
an uplift that was exaltation. There was more than magic in this 
enveloping change, there was a touch of transformation. And was 
there also a glow or happiness because she, too, was going “some¬ 
where in France?” 

She wished it were all over—she wanted to feel herself speeding 
toward the end she had chosen. She should have been disappointed 
if these friends had not been there. She wondered what they would 
think if they could see the tiny part of her mind that was listening 
to what they so evidently considered brilliant efforts to entertain 
her, and to lighten the gloom of her exit from London. It was a 


TRAPPED 


85 


positive relief when the countess touched her arm and told her that 
it was time to begin telling her friends good-bye. 

When she took her seat in the flower-filled compartment—that 
Holt had reserved and decorated for her—and saw the real concern 
—the real admiration on the faces outside her window, she felt a sud¬ 
den lump in her white throat. The artificial had been stripped from 
her friends—they were looking at her for a moment, with their bare 
hearts in their faces. 

“I am not—not worth your—being sorry for,” she said suddenly, 
leaning from her window, as the train started, “but I am going to 
try to be!” 

And with this feeling, a new world and a new Margery was a- 
wakened. Then she was swept out of sight of the familiar faces and 
the London station. She had a queer sensation that she was Florence 
Flemming, in a new and deeper guise—and that Margery Keblinger 
was gone completely. With this emotion came something of that 
dread, that she had experienced when she read the war extra over 
Lady Florence’s shoulder, and when the old man met her in the hall 
of the office, handed her those printed cards of idle words bringing 
judgment; vaguely both echoed again in her consciousness. Then that 
black lonliness enveloped her once more. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Margery Views a “Close-up” of the Glory and Panoply of War. 

After Margery came out of that strange depression that had 
hovered about her since the announcement of war, and that again 
came over her as she bade good-bye t 0 kind Lady Florence, she drew 
from her wrist bag a letter from Dallas Hope. She had read it most 
casually before leaving home, and had sent a hasty reply. Now she 
went back to sentences and phrases to be sure she had read accurat- 
ly. It was a warm note of thanks for the locket—and her picture. 
He would wear it in battle, hoping it would be an amulet. Margery 
smiled roguishly, albeit wistfully, at the brief pages, and rejoiced 
that she had answered before her departure from London. 

The first day, however, in the little Belgium town, to which she 
was immediately billeted, blotted out, for the time, all other impres¬ 
sions. 

When she went to the English Red Cross office for her uniform, 
she had listened to a lecture that was intended to prepare her for the 
harrowing sights of the mangled and crippled, to which she was 
hurrying. Yet nothing that she had heard, or had imagined, pre¬ 
pared her. Later, she decided that a merciful providence had or- 


86 


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darned that the horrors should he gradually presented—the worst 
last—that this alone saved her reason. 

The nurses were met at the train by a soldier on crutches, 
and directed to a hotel that had been converted into a hospital. It 
was near the station, and its sides and roof covered by large red 
crosses, to warn air-raiders. Here a soldier, his head swathed in 
gauze, took them into a sunny drawing room, a sort of convalescent 
hall. 

Margery set down her suit case, and looked about; an ache of 
home-sickness closing her throat. A phonograph played a wildly gay 
tune to cheer the maimed, halt, and blind. Margery’s eyes rested 
first on two blind soldiers—one a mere boy with the skin of a girl, 
and a big man of thirty-five or more. 

“This may happen to Dallas,” she thought with the same tight¬ 
ening of her heart, that she had experienced at the station when she 
witnessed the grief of the women there. 

She tried to force her thoughts away from this, by looking upon 
the others, on couches, and sofas. Some with their heads pillowed 
on rolled up coats, and others in chairs—who should have been in 
bed. There were about one hundred men in the room; nearly all of 
whom had lost a limb—often two. Many were boys. It wrung her 
heart to look at their young, mutiliated bodies. All were bandaged 
somewhere; and the lines of pain in their pale faces told of their 
silent suffering. As she realized that each bandage indicated days— 
possibly months, or even years of torture, she could hardly keep from 
screaming. The thought of their future turned her sick. 

“The glory and panoply of war!” shivered through her. 

As her eyes came back to the blind men leaning forward, path¬ 
etically listening to the phonograph, she felt a blur of tears. Looking 
down to hide them,, her eyes fell on her watch. She felt as if she had 
been in the room ages—and it had not been three minutes! 

A boy, with his left arm in a sling, raised a window and placed 
a chair near it, murmuring something about the odor of the disin¬ 
fectants making her ill. She sank down in it weakly. 

“I must learn to do better than this,” she smiled, and thanked 
him; and was relieved to see a responsive brightness. 

She fixed her eyes on the wide surfless beach. A leaden sea 
lapped the shore in flat lines of white. A stranded fish boat with¬ 
out sails, had been left on the sand by the receding tide. Lying 
seamed by the heat of summer, and waiting to rot beneath the 
snows of winter, if not dashed to pieces by a gale, it seemed almost 
human, in its desolation; a part of the living wreckage that marked 
the high tide of the storms of war. An armed cruiser, flanked by 
a fleet of submarines and torpedo boats, guarded the coast; and uni¬ 
formed sentinels patrolled the shore. 

The lump in her throat was evidently there to stay.. 

The girl lifted her eyes to the dull, sunless sky. An aeroplane 


TRAPPED 


87 


hovered there. Earth, air, water, teamed with machinery for des¬ 
truction—and these poor men around her showed just what the des¬ 
truction meant. 

A man with only one leg hobbled towards her. She saw that he 
wanted to talk to her. She turned and addressed him in his own 
language. 

“You speak Flemmishf I see your uniform is English. It is 
kind of you to come and help us.” 

“It is only what is due you. You have saved Europe from the 
militarism of Germany.” 

“I was wounded at Leige,” he said eagerly. “We have been out¬ 
numbered, beaten back—ibut conquered—Never!” 

He made a quick, emphatic gesture'—which hurt his wound, 
causing his face to turn white with pain. Margery sprang from her 
chair and placed the man in it. She opened the little first aid case, 
strapped to her shoulder, and took out a pellet, and gave it to the 
sufferer. Another nurse came up with a glass of water. 

“We have to give up our places in the wards—to the freshly 
wounded;” the soldier told her, as soon as he could speak. “I—am 
not strong yet.” 

“You poor dear.” cried Margery impulsively. “I see you are 
not.” Then she added, “Mon Brave,” which made him forget both 
nausea and weakness. 

A number of soldiers now joined the group, and in a moment 
the girl understood that they wanted news—any news. Their eager 
inquiries about Vice', Louvain, Roulen, and other villages that had 
been destroyed, made the English nurses drop their eyes. They 
could not tell them the fearful truth. They would learn soon enough. 

Fortunately, just here, a messenger entered and led the nurses 
to a room where they changed from crumpled uniforms to fresh ones, 
for duty in the sick wards. Within an hour Margery entered upon 
her work as nurse in a hospital for the wounded. 

>She was given charge of two large, airy rooms, with four cots 
in each. She opened the windows for the sea air and sun, shook up 
pillows and mattresses, pinned on fresh linen. She knew all this side 
of nursing, but she had never nursed anyone suffering from bullet 
wounds, not having reached the emergency hospital training when 
she left school for the X. Y. Z. office. She sickened at the thought 
of blood. “How can I do my part?” she began to wonder. 

A nun came in and told her that a big battle was raging, but the 
wounded would not be brought in for several hours. She saw that 
Margery’s rooms were in perfect order, and with a quick glance at 
the girl’s nervous movements, asked her if she would like to look 
over the building? 

Margery followed the nun gladly. She was surprised at the 
completeness of the hospital equipment. The operating rooms were 
connected with a laboratory that had Xray service, magnets for draw- 


TRAPPED 


ing out pieces of shell, and every modern appliance. Margery looked 
her approval. 

“We have only two—we need fifty,” said the nun. 

Then they looked into the wards where the nuns were moving 
about gently. Margery caught the door-sill, and let the other nurses 
enter before her. In every cot lay some white-faced, bandaged man, 
who appeared more dead than aliye. Some stared at the ceiling with 
fever-wide eyes and muttering lips. 

The nun, seeing Margery hesitate, came back and spoke to her. 

“I—never saw the desperately wounded before,” said Margery, 
“but I—I wanted— to help.” 

“You will—but don’t think of anything but of the help you are 
giving them. Do you want to see these patients?” 

“I—had better get accustomed to it,” Margery stammered with a 
frightened glance down the rows of cots. 

“Here is a lady who speaks English,” said the nun to a boy with 
one arm bandaged, and the other gone. 

“Are you from England,” asked Margery. Two great blue eyes, 
opened and looked at her seriously. 

“From Ireland,” he gasped, trying to smile. “I was at Lou¬ 
vain—” He lost his breath, and looked at the nun who finished for 
him. 

“He was at school there, studying for the priesthood. He is 
nineteen. He escaped the night Louvain was destroyed, and joined 
the Belgium army. He was very brave, and was shot two days ago. 
When he gets well he will tell us all about it.” 

“He is still courageous to bear the suffering so quietly,” said 
Margery warmly, looking down at the dark, Irish, pain-filled eyes. 
At her words he smiled. She saw his wound was near his throat, 
and this made every movement to speak painful. 

“Will he live?” she asked in French as they moved out of ear¬ 
shot. 

“Only those With a good chance of living are usually put in this 
ward,” the sister answered evasively. “Though some are so terribly 
maimed that I feel it is a mercy if they are taken. Yet we do all 
we can to save them. They want to live. They have given up all 
for their country!” 

Margery’s patriotism, as Bob Acres valor, was rapidly deserting 
her. With every new sufferer she encountered she rebelled against 
the injustice and cruelty of war. 

“Why here is a baby!” she cried suddenly. 

“Its parents were killed in a Zeppelin raid over a village nearby, 
a few nights ago. Both of her feet were blown off by a bomb, that 
wrecked the house. Her escape was a miracle... .if escape it could 
be called.” 

Horrified Margery caught the foot of the crib to steady herself, 
as she exclaimed “Both feet!” 


TRAPPED 


89 


The baby gave a wail. The girl snatched her hand away, feeling 
faint, that she should have added to the pain of the little creature. 
Mother Teressa patted the baby gently, and to Margery's intense 
relief it dropped to sleep again. 

“Do you speak German?” asked the nun. Margery assented, and 
the nun led her to a blue-eyed young Teuton. 

“He had a gangrened leg and arm. He was wounded and had 
hidden in the bushes for three days, and when found fought until 
exhausted,” the nun explained in French. 

Margery spoke to the patient in German, and then asked, “Did 
you prefer death to being captured?” 

His pleasant face brightened as he answered. “I don’t want to 
die, but I thought they would gouge out my eyes and torture me, if 
they took me alive.” 

“Torture a wounded man!” cried Margery aghast. 

“I was a fool then, I believed the lies they told me. My own 
wife could not have treated me better,” he looked at Mother Teressa 
gratefully. “When the war is over and I go home, I shall tell them 
you are good people.” 

“Do yau hate the Belgians?” asked the girl softly. 

“We are not fighting the Belgians,” he smiled broadly, “we are 
at war with France.” 

“You hate the French?” asked the girl. 

“Not now. I love them. We thought they wanted to kill us 
and our little ones; but they don’t. They are good to me.” 

“Why are you fighting?” 

The stupid peasant face looked bewildered. Then he smiled. 
“We were ordered to fight,” and he seemed pleased when Margery 
laughed., “I am glad I am captured and I do not have to fight now.” 

“I wish the whole German army could be captured, and so end 
the war.” 

“The whole German army captured?” He shook his head. “It 
can’t be done. It is too big. The Kaiser and God will never allow 
it.” 

Mother Teressa ended the conversation by moving t 0 the next cot. 

“This child is eight. He lost a leg just below the hip—nearly 
a week ago. He’s improving now.” 

“He and his puppy will soon be able to play with each other.” 

The boy struggled for a wan little smile, and he answered weak¬ 
ly, “Vivette and I are running a race to see which will get well 
first.” 

Near the head of the bed, in a basket was curled a tiny, white 
fluffy dog. When the boy spoke, it put its paw on the basket rim 
and barked expectantly. 

“It’s a darling,” said Margery taking it in her arms. The boy 
really smiled this time, as Margery stroked his pet. 

“It was hurt on the hind foot when its master was injured,” ex- 


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plained the nun, “It crawled to the boy, and in spite of his suffer¬ 
ings, he brought it with him in his arms. It’s the pet of the hospital. 
If it does not die from being over-fed it will soon be well.” 

As they moved away she added, “From the boy’s dress he be¬ 
longed to people of large means* Now he has only his name and his 
puppy. The baby hasn’t even a name. She is a tenement baby, and 
the structure was mistaken for a factory, and' bombed.” 

A long, low whistle was heard. Mother Teressa stopped, with 
her finger at her lips, listening. 

“It is the train,” she said, with infinite sadness in her face and 
voice. “We must be ready to receive the wounded. Can you find 
your way to your ward?” 

Margery assured her that she could, and ran up the steps to 
the rooms that had been placed in her care. 


i 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

A New Friend 

Margery turned off the heat and drained the water from the 
vessel in which the instruments belonging to her “field case,” had been 
boiling. Then she filled the metal pitchers with boiled water, cov¬ 
ered them with sterilized caps—to cool a little—and placed them in 
the porcelain-lined bowls on the iron stands beside each cot. 

At this moment a young nun entered and said that Mother 
Teressa had sent her to ask if the English nurses had all they wanted 
for making preparations to receive the wounded. She complimented 
Margery on the appearance of her rooms, inspected the hanging shelf 
on which the girl had laid out her hypodermics, and asked if they 
were ready for use. 

“Yes, they are filled, and the needles were thoroughly boiled 
before being wrapped,” replied Margery, secretly proud of her fore¬ 
thought. 

“Have they brought you no surgical dressings?” asked the sister. 

“Yes, more I hope than we shall use. They are piled under the 
sterilized cloths on the dresser and in the big drawers.”’ 

The nun glanced at them. “Not more than you will need.” 

“There are my gloves,” Margery pointed to them soaking in a 
basin, “Of course I shall scrub my hands again, at the last minute, 
after I fill my water bags. How shall I know when to warm the 
beds?” 

“You heard the long whistle?” 

Margery nodded. 

“There will be two short whistles when the train reaches the near- 


TRAPPED 


91 


est station. That will give us ten or twelve minutes to do the last 
things needed. Does the sight of blood make you ill?” 

. “ I—1 know,” Margery hesitated. “This is my first ex¬ 

perience with the terribly wounded. I have nursed sick persons.. ” 

Two short low whistles interrupted her. Instinctively Margery 
caught up her pile of h 0 t water bags, while the nun turned toward 
the door, saying, “They will begin bringing them in now, in a few 
minutes.” 

Seeing the girl’s frightened eyes, she added encouragingly, “You 
have been so beautifully trained. You are going to make a splendid 
nurse.” 

They parted in the hall. Margery soon returned to her rooms, 
carrying her smoking bottles by the strings, and busied' herself 
moving them about in the beds. This done, she scrubbed her hands. 
She looked over her charts and pencils on the table beside the big 
bottles of chloroform, ether, amil, and again counted the cones she 
had prepared for an emergency. Everything was ready—as far as 
human skill could go. 

If the wounded had been brought in while she was still busy, 
it would have been better for her self-control. Unfortunately, 
though, she had several minutes in which to wait! Below in the 
halls she heard the soft, steady foot-falls of those who were bringing 
in the litters. The lower wards were first filled. Now the steps 
were on the stairs. Gently—so gently they moved, these men who 
carried the wounded. They knew the slightest jar meant unendur¬ 
able agony to nerves at the breaking point. 

Margery stood at the door, her cold hands clasped tightly, while 
she listened intently and tried to guess how soon they would reach 
her rooms. She glanced down the hall. Near every third door, stood 
a nurse, calmly waiting. Everybody seemed to know exactly what to 
do expect herself; and each moment her nervous excitement increased. 
It was impossible for her to stand 1 calmly waiting. She walked from 
room to room in a panic. Now she heard the wounded being brought 
down her corridor. (She felt bewildered. Her heart thumped so that 
she feared she would faint at the moment she should be helping. 
There was no one to ask what to db. The rooms on the other side 
of the hall were being rapidly filled. 

Through the open door of the opposite apartment she saw the 
surgeon in white uniform, swathed to the eyes, ready to operate, bend¬ 
ing over a cot, and asking a question or two, before carefully select¬ 
ing an instrument from the tray which the nurse held. There was 
a singing in Margery’s ears, and she was so dizzy she could scarcely 
stand. She put out her hand and touched the table for support. 
Her trembling made the bottles click together, and fearing she would 
upset the medicines, she leaned against the wall. Closing her eyes, 
she prayed the most earnest—perhaps the only real prayer—of her 
life. She prayed for calm to perform her duty to those heroic suf- 


92 


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ferers who were being brought to her. “God, dear God! Give me 
strength. Give me help,” she whispered. 

When she raised her lids she was looking into the kindest face 
she had ever seen. 

“Do you feel faint, my child?” asked a voice that matched his 
eyes, gentle and forceful. The man wore the garb of a Belgian 
priest, and Margery realized with a quivering sigh of relief, that 
here was material strength to lean upon. 

“Yes, she murmured. “They suffer so_” 

“We can only do our best,” encouraged the man. “Fortunately 
for you, only those expected to recover are brought to this ward. 
Nearly all, in here, get well enough to be sent further on.” 

Margery thought of the two blind soldiers down-stairs, and hoped 
none of her patients would have lost their sight. 

“I will stay,” added the priest, “and help you tonight.” 

“Will you? Oh, thank you,” she cried, a sweet color leaping to 
her cheeks. 

Almost immediately they began bringing the wounded into the 
rooms. 

“I am Abbe' Gerard,” the priest said; and under his directions 
Margery was soon so busy she forgot her fears. 

How she passed through that evening and night, how she assist¬ 
ed in her first operations, she could never distinctly remember. When 
she tried to recall it there was always a blur, through which she 
saw the Ab(be' doing, or telling her, what was necessary. That quiet 
sustaining voice directing her, anticipating the needs of the surgeon, 
so that she had what the surgeon wanted before he asked for it. She 
knew there was blood—she seemed to see it all, through a crimson, 
sickening haze—though the details were a blank. 

But Margery had come into her own. She had found herself— 
and in so doing discovered her real talent. She was indeed—as she 
told Lady Florence the teachers had called her—a born nurse. Her 
ability amounted almost to genius. Past mid-night the surgeon spoke 
to her. “When I saw you standing here, frail as a weed—I wished 
the doctor across the hall had you—but your steady hand has been 
of great service to me.” 

It was Albbe' Gerard,” she gasped. 

She looked upon the Abbe's coming as an immediate answer to 
her prayer. Faith—like a grain of mustard seed—hidden under 
the pleasures and desires of her life—had quickened; in a queer 
but wonderful way she felt it would sustain her through all that lay 
before her. 

It was a blow to hear the Abbe' say, a little later, in an under¬ 
tone to a nun who came in, that she must tell Mother Theresa he had, 
as she requested, come to Miss Keblinger’s rooms, and he would re¬ 
main all morning. 

So Mother Teressa’s discerning eye had read the girl’s misgiv- 


TRAPPED 


93 

ings, as they toured the hospital—and she had sent the Abbe'! But 
like an inspiration came the thought: “The Good God knew I was 
going to pray, and he started the answer before I asked.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 

The Accolade. 

Dawn broke. A faint line of red along the horizon, that soften¬ 
ed into yellow, and a widespread gray proclaimed that day had come, 
but with it brought no sunshine. 

Abbe' Gerard paused at the door of Margery's ward. His eyes 
studied the girl who was kneeling beside the cot of a young soldier, 
bathing his hot face in ice water. She had been on duty all night, 
but there was nothing in the elastic curve of her young body, nor the 
deft motion of her hands, to indicate fatigue. Even her look of in¬ 
terest in her patient had not flagged. 

The Abbe”s experienced eye ran over the cots. Six of the pa¬ 
tients he felt reasonably sure would recover, the other two were pro¬ 
bably dying. He wondered if they had been brought to this ward by 
mistake. Perhaps there was no other place. He had just learned 
that one thousand wounded had been brought in the night previous, 
ai d the hospital was intended to accomodate only five hundred. 

The Abbe' motioned to Margery to come to him. 

She did so. As she met his eyes she felt their encouragement 
had changed to warm approval. A glow shot throught her. She 
realized she had met the terrible situation and had been adequate! 
She had really done, what the evening previous she had trembled be¬ 
fore, and feared that she never could do. In the Abbe 's eyes she 
saw an understanding of her own startled recognition of victory. “I 
cried unto the Lord and he delivered me from all my fears,” rose 
obscurely in her mind from a formerly dead prayer-page. As she 
stood speechless the Abbe' reverently made a sign of blessing over 
her. 

It was her accolade. 

No knight rising from his preparatory vigils, ever received his 
mission with more reverence than Margery did hers. Her ready 
tears filled her eyes, and she bowed her head. 

Then the Abbe' spoke naturally. “Go my child, sit a few min¬ 
utes by the window and get a breath of air.” 

Margery glanced at her patients. Some were sleeping under the 
influence of opiates, but others lay with their eyes on the ceiling, 
their white, drawn faces proving their wounds to be harrowingly 
painful. Many had lain on the battle field two days and nights be- 


94 


TRAPPED 


fore the firing ceased sufficiently to allow the ambulance corps to 
gather them in. Margery saw there was nothing she could do. 

She obediently took the chair at the window and looked out. The 
elbow of the street and beach before her was familiar. When a child 
—it now seemed a million years ago—she had spent a summer with 
her parents at Ostend, and one day they had motored to this town. 
She had always remembered the spot as an ideally happy one. The 
crowds, and bands, and gaiety had seemed a natural feature of the 
Belgian coast. And Oh! the sunshine dancing on the waters! 

Now all was utterly changed. Over the sea clouds hung low, 
hiding the patrol of the gun boats which were hugging the shore. 
Even the stranded fishboat, with naked masts, that she had seen the 
day before, was invisible. Out of the dense gloom loomed a sentry, 
gigantic through the fog, as he strode in and out of view. Gradually 
as the light increased, the mist changed to a drizzle, and the drip, 
drip, drip from the shadowy trees added a dreary refrain to the de¬ 
pressing view. 

Margery felt that the scene accorded perfectly with her own 
heart—with the heart of Belgium—with what would be the heart of 
Europe, and the world doubtless, before the monstrous conflict were 
ended. 

“Men are fighting in this rain,” thought Margery, “and the 
wounded are lying water-soaked in it, and cold, and it may be hours 
before they can bring them in—fathers!—sons!—lovers!”_ 

She stopped, a sting of tears in her eyes, and a queer swelling in 
her throat. That new prayer surged up involuntarily; “God save 
them! save them!” 

She sprang up and' went back to the Abbe'. 

“I can’t look out. I must be busy—or I shall go mad!’’ 

He glanced at her strained, excited eyes. 

“Will you bring me a cup of coffee?” he asked smiling. “The 
sister at the end of the hall will tell you where to find it. “Don’t 
hurry to return. Eat something yourself, first. You must think 
of your work,” he added adroitly; “to work, you know, you must eat.” 

“Where is Lieutenant Hope?” thought Margery, as she walked 
down the corridor. She was becoming convinced that those who 
first entered the war would be killed. iShe had discovered that for 
a command to remain in the field was no indication that any of the 
original members were still in it. The vacancies caused by death, 
capture, or missing, being filled by new men, and the old name re¬ 
tained. 

While she waited for the coffee she saw a newspaper, that had 
evidently been dropped by some one in authority. Like a flash she 
opened it and hit almost at once upon a list of the dead and wounded 
of the Westmorland Guards. 

Her finger shook as she pressed it closely down the column in 
horrible fear that she might omit the one name that counted. But 


TRAPPED 


95 


her eye leapt ahead of her painstaking finger and grasped the name 
of Dallas Hope. For a moment she could not see—then she read 
‘ Captain Dallas Hope.” She went back and read more calmly that 
the captain had lost his life in a gallant charge, and that Dallas had 
been promoted. 

The tides of life flowed back with relief that in itself was pain. 
Then she suddenly wondered at her own excitement. 

When she carried the coffee to the Abbe', he was in the hall near 
her door, talking to the Mother Superior. He drained the cup and 
ate a roll standing, while Margery prettily held the tray for him. 
As he finished he said gently: 

“Go with Mother Teressa and obey orders. I’ll take charge here 
for a while. And remember child, you have done well.” 

The praise was a tonic to the girl; but she insisted: 

“As if you have not been in charge all night.” 

As she looked at his fat, homely face, radiating goodness and 
cheer, her estimate of manly beauty underwent a sudden change. “It 
must be the spirit looking out that makes him almost beautiful,” she 
decided as she followed the nun to the coffee room. 

Mother Teressa ordered a cup of hot milk and a roll for her 
charge, telling her as soon as she finished she must go to her room, 
and undress and sleep until called. The girl protested that sleep 
was impossible. 

She found her room empty, though other nurses occupied it with 
her. On the little table lay some mail. With half the room be¬ 
tween her and the table she recognized Dallas Hope’s distinctive 
writing. Fatigue faded away as she hastily opened the precious 
missive. 

Her eyes grabbed the words from the page. It was dated two 
days before, and was an answer to the letter she had mailed prior 
to leaving London. It was perfectly evident that her reluctant 
statement that the locket picture was not of herself, had been received 
exultantly. She could not know that because the locket had not 
been designed for another, that his love had leaped to the stars. 
She felt a bit queer that he should be so pleased when the 
picture was not hers. It did not occur to her that this fact laid 
the ghost of “The other Man!” Captain Hope’s English reserve mod¬ 
erated his words, but the effect of the great feeling behind them 
reached her. It was written on the eve of his third battle. 

“The face to me is yours, and has indeed become an amulet. 
Above all my hopes, is the hope of living till I meet you again. Mar. 
gery—let me call you Margery—this is true! If I fall, your picture 
will be next to my heart, and my last thoughts shall be of you.” 
The thrill of these words passed through her with a confusion of 
feeling that was wholly new to her—and incommunicably sweet. 

The next moment she was wondering why soldiers wrote such 
abject foolishness and said what they didn’t mean. But—if he did 


96 


TRAPPED 


mean it! How had the battle gone with him? This pricked the 
bubble of her doubt. You can’t very well measure cold justice to a 
man’s words—when he is on the brink of every known danger. 

She was sure she could not sleep now; but as she lay with the 
letter between her hands on her breast, she felt dear, protected— 
almost happy. Relaxation loosened her taut nerves, and she sank 
into the dreamless sleep of exhaustion. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

An Hour off Becomes an Enchanted Space in the 
Little Country of a Great People. 

It was afternoon when Margery awoke. The crackle of her 
letter as she slipped it into her bag, brought only fear now—fear for 
Dallas Hope. 

She dressed with flying fingers, but a heavy heart. Still she 
was learning to disguise her feelings, and that wonderfu 1 lesson, of 
putting herself into the background. Fresh white garments also re¬ 
freshed her soul: so summoning her dimpling smile, she lunched al¬ 
most cheerfully; after which she reported at the office. A nun gave 
her a merciful order. 

“You are not to go on duty until three ten,” she said knowing the 
golden liesure that twenty disengaged minutes meant to a nurse. 

Margery spied a writing pad on the window sill. Her fountain 
pen that she used in charting, was pinned to her uniform. She made 
an instant decision. 

“I’ll wait here,” she smiled; and sat down to reply to Hope’s 
note. 

The thunder of artillery that was before him when he wrote, and 
the pity the wounded had awakened in her, swept away the girlish 
coquetry that ordinarily would have held her, in writing to a charm¬ 
ing man whom she had seen but twice. She even forgot he might 
not have meant all that he said. In her ears sounded that ancient 
refrain: “We that are about to die, salute you!” His danger over¬ 
whelmed her. But she began properly enough. 

She congratulated him upon his promotion to the captaincy, and 
let her pleasure in receiving his missive leak through her acknow¬ 
ledgement of it. Then her pen had its own way as she wrote: 

“You are delightful concerning the picture in the locket. 
Certainly it is dear to me; how could it be otherwise? Pos¬ 
sibly if I had thought a moment, I should not have been 
carried away by an impulse. However, since you are the 
man now in possession, I pray that this treasure of mine, may 
prove a true amulet for you—until we meet. For you 


TRAPPED 


97 


see I, too, am looking forward to that happy time; the 
sun of old England on our faces, and Peace—Peace with 
all men, in our hearts! Yet do you know, my experience 
here, desperate as it is, seems to be of more value, than all 
of my other life.” 

She held the pen a long time, her cheeks flaring in amaze¬ 
ment at her own desire. She wanted to write “Faithfully” to this 
man—not quite, but almost a stranger; wanted to write the word be¬ 
cause it carried the pledge. She put aside the desire with a stubborn 
little tilt of her chin at the letter. “Sincerely” was too cold; “cord¬ 
ially” belonged to the social world. Then a phrase came to her res¬ 
cue, and she wrote. “With every hope, Margery.” 

She laughed and blushed at her unconscious “play” on the word 
hope; and then began to furiously analyze how he might construe 
the simple lines. But there was no times for re-writing; besides, 
she did not mind, this bit of daring was rather exhilarating! 

At this moment the nurse looked towards Margery. She hastily 
addressed the envelope, and at once deposited it in the mail box in the 
corridor; and then she went up stairs to her own domain. 

The Abbe' was gone. She looked over the preparations for the 
next influx of wounded men. Everything was ready. She had 
seven empty cots. The patients who had occupied them the previous 
night, and who normally would have spent weeks in bed, attended 
by a special nurse, had been sent on litters, by steamer to England, 
or by train to Southern France, to recuperate. The hospital was near 
the front, and room had to be constantly kept for those who could 
travel no further, until their wounds had received attentnion. 

A nurse appeared at the door. 

Abbe' Gerard wishes you to take this note to a nun who assists 
in receiving the wounded at the train. I will take your place here, 
until you return,” she said. 

Margery felt sure that this was the Abbe”s interference to give 
her a breathing space in the fresh air, before she entered upon her 
second experience of nursing the wounded. 

She was surer of this when she saw on the billet an order writ¬ 
ten by the Mother Superior, for Miss Keblinger to take an hour off 
before returning to the hospital. 

As she walked down the padded hall, suddenly the peculiar, long, 
soft whistle of the ambulance train shivered through the silent 
building. It did not paralize Margery with panic as it had the pre¬ 
ceding evening. Her certainty about the horrors it was bringing her, 
and the knowledge that she had been adequate to everything de¬ 
manded of her, delivered her from fear, though she turned white at 
the recollection. 

She reached the station and delivered the note just as the train 


98 


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pulled in. It stopped almost without a jar. She watched the terri¬ 
bly pathetic load of wounded being taken off. 

Down the car steps—first—came those able to walk without as¬ 
sistance. These were led away to await their turn for treatment. 
Next, those on litters—the seriously wounded—were carefully carried 
off. The girl wondered which of those that passed her would be 
waiting in her room when she returned. Last came a slower pro¬ 
cession of litters. These were taken to the rear of the station. 

“Why don't they go to the hospital?" asked Margery, in aston¬ 
ishment, of the nun beside her. 

If the nun answered, the girl never heard. 

A young English officer swung off the steps of the last com¬ 
partment of a train on another track, and came running towards her 
with outstretched hands. She had a mere glance of khaki and blue 
eyes, before he had both her hands in his. 

“You! You! You!" he cried. “Margery Keblinger! Here! It is 
too good to be true!" 

“Captain Hope!" she exclaimed in radiant astonishment. 

His face was shining, his eyes were twin suns. After her first 
straight bewildered look into them, Margery could not meet them. 

“He is so much finer—taller—handsomer than I remember!" 
she was thinking. 

Yes, he was even better than her dreams. 

As he guided her out of the crowd near the train, explaining 
that he was taking a message that required personal transmission 
from France to Belgium, she was conscious of a new force in him. 
Not just that he was leaner, browner, nor even that he had obscure¬ 
ly a new grip of himself. There was a new spirit in his eyes, and 
something besides the flame there that she could not meet; a new 
firmness on his lovely mouth, a new manliness. It was this that 
made him seem taller and more forceful as he turned her out of the 
confusion to an empty spot in the station. She realized he, like her¬ 
self, had met life in an awful and vital struggle, and he was not 
quite so young as when she walked with him to the London station. 

“My train does not leave for almost an hour," he said, as he bent 
bare-headed over her, his voice tremulous with eagerness. “If I 
could see you for this hour!" 

“You can!" her bronze lashes swept her cheeks, half hiding the 
glance of pure gladness that she gave him. “It is my hour off—an 
undeserved favor. Until you sprang from the train I did not know 
what to do with it." 

“I'll show you what to do with it. It will be our hourV' he ex¬ 
ulted. “We want a walk, don’t we? Where we can hear each other 


TRAPPED 


99 


without screaming above all this noise. Have you been over the 
town?" 

“When a litle girl —with my father and mother. I remember 
the beach.... ” 

‘‘We’ll go there? If you say?” 

She nodded, and they swung away from the crowded station. 

“It was so different then—the beach,” Margery murmured. “Full 
of life, and the gayest place, I thought, I had ever seen. There is not 
even the sun to-day.” 

He interupted her with a flashing look that said more poignantly 
than words.—that it was sunshine for him just to be near her. 

They walked quietly through the streets, his khaki sleeve touch¬ 
ing her nurse’s uniform. Now that he was really beside her she 
felt calm—or was she a bit stunned? The dreaming was gone. This 
was a real man, carefully shortening his step to hers, his uniform not 
so fresh as when she last saw him. Yet—the world was newly made. 
The leaden beach, heaving into sight, seemed an enhcanted stretch. 
She forgot altogether that she had seen it at dawn and rushed from 
its depression. 

He looked down at her and said with an ingenuous burst: “I can 
hardly believe that I have found you—that it is really you!” 

They sat down on a queer twisted bench, where, undisturbed, 
they could watch the surf roll in. 

Dallas Hope stared out at it. 

“Poor little Belgium! Poor little country!” he said under his 
breath. “We are going to rake it out—clean out from Germany’s 
heel—and make the big devils give back what they have stolen!” 

“If you had seen what I have already.. .. ” Margery’s voice 
halted in a sob in her throat, “you would know that nothing on earth 
could give back to Belgium what Germany has already taken!” 

At her sob he turned with such an impulse of protection to her, 
that she felt he controlled an instinct to put his arms around her. 

“The hospital—you mean—the wounded and all that?” He bent 
close to her. “It must be terrible for you! Terrible for a girl to see 
all that! It’s all hell!” 

That something older—stronger—bigger, that she had felt in him, 
stared at her a moment from his blue eyes. Then they softened to 
the expression she could not meet. He touched her sleeve with a car¬ 
ess that was half-reverence. “Tell me what you do. Do you nurse 
the badly wounded—yet?” 

His tenderness almost unnerved her. Tears were so easy for 
her. But she was trying to conquer this tendency. 

Last night—I cared for the wounded,” she said simply, “and 
nursed them all night. I helped the surgeons.... ” 

“By George! Not amputations and—all that?” 

She nodded, because she could not manage to say a word. 


100 


TRAPPED 


“And you didn’t faint—or get sick?” he quizzed in boyish amaze¬ 
ment. 

“I would have—at first—if a wonderful man had not helped me.” 

“A wonderful man!” he repeated, “a surgeon?” 

“No—a priest.” 

“Oh! A priest!” His attitude of tension relaxed with one of his 
brilliant smiles. “I wont shoot him,” he emphasized; “but inform 
the surgeons in your ward, in your whole hospital, that I am taking 
target practice.” 

Margery answered with her inimitable sweep of bronze lashes. 

That grave and gentle silence again settled over them. For 
only a moment could they be gay boy and girl. The silence changed 
to a sort of rest. There seemed to be no need for speaking. The 
many things she had thought he would say—thought she wanted 
to hear, passed into peace—because they were together. Once he 
turned to her as if he were about to break into impetuous speech. 
She lifted her eyes, and encountered only his look—a steady, pierc¬ 
ing, long look. 

He turned away as if half choked. 

The fear of the battle front came over Margery. The roll of the 
flat surf suddenly became the roll she had seen that morning, when 
she had thought of the wounded—and had sprung away from it. 

This blinding blackness passed quickly, however, like the black¬ 
ness of a train shooting through a tunnel into clear sunlight. Was he 
not sitting beside her, unhurt, and more wonderful than her dreams? 

As they walked back, and tried to talk of Lady Florence and Lord 
Carnes, she was calm and almost happy; though she felt the irregular 
beat of some force in him that took all words away from him. This 
revelation of silence— the queer poise with which Dallas could look 
unutterable things—the words that he did not say—filled her with 
a warmth she had not even imagined existed. Yet she knew that he 
was feeling more than she. Once he stopped and looked down on her 
as he stood beside her. 

“I thought you were only beautiful—the most beautiful girl I had 
ever seen, that evening at the dinner party—till I found you were— 
charming. At the station I thought you were so womanly—so fine— 
so warm-hearted, to give me the locket.” His voice broke a little, 
and he touched his breast where Margery knew it was hidden. “When 
I know, now, how you nurse the soldiers—the dreadful sights and 
ordeals you stand—I know you are more—big—wonderful—heroic!” 

His tone cleared and rang with a sort of a triumph-peal into the 
girl’s innerest consciousness. 

She, too, stood looking at him with a simplicity that was almost 
child-like. She forgot entirely they were on the street. In her new, 
painful life she had been a strange atom to all with whom she had 
come into contact—-except the Abbe'. Hope’s words were recognition 
of what she was trying to do. She felt this in her soul. What he 


TRAPPED 


101 


said of her was extravagant, she told herself; yet such words from 
him, delighted her and encarmined her face. 

“Don’t—say such things of me,” she protested. 

He continued with the same earnestness: “I know, too, you are 
helping men to die—when they have to die!” The setting sun re¬ 
flected a glory in Margery’s hair with the effect of a nimbus. She 
had no consciousness of this, but in her white dress and cap, she re¬ 
minded the young man of a pictured saint. The memory remained 
long with him. 

“I am not worthy of your thinking that,” she said quickly. “But 
—but I’ll try to be!” she added softly. 

They had reached the station, and passengers were boarding the 
train. 

With one foot on the step, he took her hand, pressing it in both 
of his, and with sudden reverent boldness, bent, and held his lips to 
it. 

“Margery!” he pleaded, bending close to her. “Margery! look at 
me! Look at me!” The train began to move. 

She looked up swiftly into the blue eyes of her dreams, filmed 
with feeling that left her speechless, shaken. 

“I love you,” he breathed, and—was gone. 

She had not heard the words—but she knew. She turned and 
hurried from the snorting farewell of the engine. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

The Death Chamber. 

As Margery hastened away a little blindly, from the departing 
train, she met the nun to whom she had 1 been speaking when Dal¬ 
las had rushed up to her. Automatically her memory returned to the 
question: “Do you look after the hopelessly wounded here?” 

The sister looked at her keenly; and because Margery felt a 
tumult beneath her uniform—a sort of blank—and a tug at her 
heart that had nothing whatever to do with Red Cross nursing, she 
tried to bring herself back instantly to her surroundings. To prove 
she was interested in her work—and not the dying of that train 
whistle—she asked again about these cases. 

“My friend interrupted me before I understood just what you told 
me about the hopelessly wounded. You are prepared to care for 
them here, because nearer than the hospital?” 

The nun’s eyes already sad, became tragic, and she turned away 
as she replied: “We do not care for them, except to give them hypo- 


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dermics. We have to leave them after that—and go to the others 
who are suffering. 

“Leave them! Not to die alone?” exclaimed Margery in horror. 

The nun nodded, and turned entirely away. 

“I can’t believe it!” gasped Margery. 

(Coming on the heels of her hour with Dallas, and the momentary 
forgetting of the horrors she had seen—it was too frightful for her 
to accept this condition as true without a protest. Men fatally 
wounded for love of country, sent back to die unattended! No one 
to relieve their agony; to receive a last message for their loved ones 
at home. No one to even hand them a cup of cold water! She( fol¬ 
lowed the sister. 

“Couldn’t I help?” she pleaded. “I have a little time left.” 

“You might give morphine, if no other nurses are there,” she 
answered. 

Where is it? Of course I am shocked—but I am not frightened,” 
chattered Margery, who was enduring a nervous rigor. “I—I’ll be 
all right —in—in a moment.” 

“Ask for the Death Chamber. It is in the rear of the building.” 

The Death Chamber! The very name sent a freezing sensation 
through the girl. She had to make a detour to reach the part of the 
staton the nun had indicated. On the way she passed a great wet 
mound marked by a wooden cross, on which was hung a wreath of 
leaves. She shivered again as she looked. This vast grave had been 
dug and filled that morning, in the rain, while she slept. 

The Death Chamber, she found, was a low-ceiled room in the base¬ 
ment of the building. White-faced, purple lipped men were lying on 
the bare stone floor. They were still bringing them in. In spite of 
their grim courage the dying soldiers groaned as they were lifted, 
even ever so gently, from the litters to the floor. There was not so 
much as a pillow of straw for their heads. 

“Better to have died on the battle field,” thought Margery. She 
had not then seen a battle field. 

Two nuns were moving among the prostrate, shattered forms. 
One of them came to the door to speak to Margery, but declined her 
help. 

We have almost finished giving the hypodermics. Soon we must 
report at the hospital.” 

“And leave them to die alone!” It seemed enexpressibly cruel. 
Her eyes filled. 

“We have to obey orders,’’the sister reminded her simply. “There 
are not enough nurses and doctors for these—unless we neglect 
those who have a chance to get well. It is heart breaking. It is war.” 
As she spoke the nun’s face was almost as white as those of the dead. 

Margery nodded and turned away. 

“What will those poor men think and feel, when they realize that 
they are left alone?” she wondered. “No nurses, no surgeons, no one 


TRAPPED 


103 


to even offer a prayer for their souls! And with the intense pain 
they are enduring, no opiate could last very long. Will they recog¬ 
nize their doom as they see their companions, one by one, falling into 
the sleep of death beside them? What will be their reaction, when 
they know this is the end of giving their all for king and country? 

They have sacrificed everything to save Europe. And Europe_” 

She paused and wiped her eyes as she neared the corner, “Europe— 
much of it>—is eating, dancing, sleeping, while these heroes die alone! 
It is horrible. Each of these men is the darling of some woman’s 
heart. And he is dying alone! Unless I had seen it—I—I—it would 
be unthinkable.” 

But obedience is a nurse’s, as well as a soldier’s, first duty. 
So squaring her young shoulders, the girl turned, and almost ran to 
the hospital. 

“I—I must go where I can be of service to somebody. But oh! 
you poor, poor dears,” with a backward glance; “I love you, and wish 
so, that I might stay.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Margery Thinks a Little. 

? > 

Margery went at once to her ward. New cots were being crowded 
into the halls. Room—more room—for the wounded, was urgently 
needed. She was glad to try by helping these, to forget those she 
could not succor. But she could not keep them out of her thoughts; 
nor fail to recall that thousands of surgeons and physicians were 
going their half-required and simple rounds in Great Britain. 

England was not awakened! This was the cause of it. They 
had not voted a thousandth part of what was necessary to care for the 
wounded that poured into these hospitals at the front. Some one 
should write and tell them about it. But who would read it? 

“The world desires to laugh, not to listen to> horrors,” she mused 
bitterly; a queer sort of resentment rising in her heart, as she re¬ 
membered the dinner party in London, that she had attended a few 
nights before leaving, and the complacent patriotism she, and the 
other guests felt because they had that day contributed to the “Prince 
of Wales’ Fund!” 

They were children playing—while the world was on fire at their 
doors. 

Then Dallas Hope’s blue eyes looked at her, and his lips on her 
hand came back to her with unbelievable sweetness. But the Death 
Chamber obtruded its ghastly frightfulness, and left her sick and 
quivering. The misery of it was increased by the keen appreciation 
of her patients for every attention. 

She thought of America, “safe in her splendid isolation,” as she 


104 


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had read somewhere, and wondered if that country were drawn into 
the awful conflict, if her first men—the best who leapt to the colors— 
would be left, too, in such extremity. Would it require useless sacri¬ 
fice to arouse her also? She believed not. 

“War does not really decide anything. It can not settle a princi¬ 
ple,” she argued. “Nations are stupid to kill their best men. Men 
know war is inhuman, why haven't they learned that it is foolish? 
I’m just a girl who has never thought;—but even I can see this.” 

Suddenly she realized she was no longer a frivolous girl—but a 
woman, with a woman’s live sympathies. These maimed, wrecks of 
humanity—the derelicts of war—whom she had seen for only three 
days, and these freshly bleeding under, her hands, had made her anew. 

Her development had already swept her entirely away from the 
prophecy of Amos Russell. If she had recalled it, her view point 
would have been so wholly different, that she could not have con¬ 
sidered it a moment; for there ware the grim cots of the tormented 
men—and the Death Chamber. 

Then Captain Hope’s face came back to her, and she re-lived their 
parting. Suddenly he seemed beside her, bending over her, with that 
change in his eyes from stern thinking to soft fire. 

Strangely, it warmed her more in retrospect than when he had 
looked at her on the beach. For Dallas, all unaware, had gained the 
greatest ally a man can have in winning a girl—her imagination. And 
it was doing more for him, than he could ever do for himself. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

A Blue-eyed Soldier Walks the Wards with Margery. 

The following afternoon when Margery opened her eyes, the 
nurses whose room she shared, were dressing with the quick quiet¬ 
ness of the well trained. One spoke to her: 

“Your bath is ready. I was just going to call you. We are to 
lunch, and then relieve the nurses who have been on duty since day¬ 
light. We shall all be needed to-night. There is a big engagement 
somewhere. You and I go to the ward, until five o’clock.” 

When they reached the hall, the nun in charge gave them a few 
instructions, and left. They began a tour from cot to cot to see if 
there was anything needed. A patient with wistful eyes asked: 

“Could you write a few lines to my mother, telling her that I am 
—alive?” 

Margery thought of some post cards that Lady Florence had put 
in her nurse’s case. When she had finished writing for the young 
man, the eager eyes watching her, caused her to offer to write for the 
others. 

Her suggestion was greedily accepted. A ripple of excitement 


TRAPPED 


105 


seemed to pass over the entire room as it became evident that Margery 
was a public secretary. She passed from cot to cot, promising her 
services for the following day, when she would have cards for every¬ 
body. Then she went back to the few who were near the man for 
whom she had first written, and scribbled until her supply was almost 
exhausted. The soldiers were immensely pleased. It was Margery’s 
first happy moment of hospital work. 

The young German with gangrene wounds gazed at her appeal¬ 
ingly, but he did not speak. Margery asked him, in his tongue, if he 
wished to send a few words home, and his blue eyes filled with tears. 

“Ah, yes!” he exclaimed, “Katrine, and the little Hans, and the 
baby girl, who are unhappy becaues they think me dead.” 

Margery gave him her fountain pen, and held her last card 
steady while he scrawled a loving message, adding that he was hew¬ 
ing well cared for. It required much mental exertion, and assistance 
from Margery in spelling, but his admiration for the finished pro¬ 
duction was boundless—and amusing—except that anything amusing 
now, seemed pathetic. 

“I must put the translation beneath it so that the censors will let 
it pass,” the girl explained, writing rapidly. 

“You are kind to me,” the man said gratefully. “You speak like 
a German.” 

“I am English, though,” she replied smiling. 

“English!” he cried in amazement. “We were told the English 
were the worst of all. You are—an angel!” 

Katrine would have experienced no jejalousy if she had been 
present. His dull brain was puzzled with conflicting thoughts which 
for the first time presented themselves. Evidently the doubt in his 
mind implicated the government—and worse even than treason—the 
Kaiser! 

“There has been a terrible mistake—” he began. 

“A terrible mistake,” echoed Margery, her pent-up feeling leap¬ 
ing out unexpectedly. 

A nurse near by raised her eyebrows warningly. Exciting tpp- 
ics were forbidden in the hospital. 

“At least,” added the girl lamely, “that is a woman’s point of 
view.” 

“All women are opposed to war,” sighed the German in relief. 
“We would have kept out of it if we could,” he added, in a tone none 
but Margery heard. “I was happy at home with Katrine. Why 
should I want to kill anbody?” 

“You didn’t of course,” comforted Margery; “and now Katrine 
will know that you are alive; and after the war you can be happy 
again with her.” 

As she moved away, she met the gaze of the boy priest. Even to 
her unpracticed eye, it was apparent that he was not so well as when 
she first met him. But he still smiled bravely. When she asked if she 


106 


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could do anything for him, he wondered if she would read a little to 
him from the Bible. 

The simple request was an appalling one to the girl. The most 
curious shame crept through her at the thought of standing before all 
in the ward reading from the Book of Books. Then a strange and 
lovely thing happened. She felt the blue eyes of Dallas Hope looking 
at her half-reverently, wholly expectantly. Her shame died, as 
something unworthy, and a nobler shame of being unable to read the 
Bible intelligently, came over her. Lady Florence had given her 
one; and she quickly brought it. On her way back to the hall she 
turned the leaves rapidly to find something suitable. She knew the 
things that you read to the sick and dying were there, but she only 
remembered that Adam and Eve were at the beginning and Reverla- 
tions at the end. She had never read the Bible, nor could she recall 
her mother reading it. When her father was ill, however, the minister 
had very often read to him, and she had listened. She turned 
the pages frantically, recalling nothing that could help her. She felt 
that she was more ignorant than other English girls of her class were. 

Suddenly she thought: “He is a priest. He will know what he 
wants to hear. ,, 

She asked him what he preferred. 

“The first part of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews/’ he replied. 

“Hebrews,” repeated Margery to herself. “Of course that is in 
the Old Testament; anybody would know that much—Genesis, Exo¬ 
dus,” she turned the leaves quickly—without finding it. Thinking 
she had passed it she began turning again from the beginning. “Oh, 
the index!” came as an inspiration. She glanced down the double list 
rapidly. It was not there! This was terrible! It was impossible for 
her to acknowledge to this young priest, that she—a trained nurse, 
ministering to the dying—could not find Hebrews! 

She ran over the index a second time. “It simply is not in this 
Bible. I have heard that the Catholics have some books in their 
Bible that we omit, and this must be one of them. Still....” 

She glanced down the short column of the New Testament books. 
“Here it is!” she almost cried aloud. “Who would have thought of 
finding Hebrews in the New Testament!” 

She quickly found the required chapter, and read it to the young 
man. She read in English but she noticed that others listened, to the 
grand, sustaining words. When she finished she turned to a young 
Frenchman near her, and asked him if he would like her to read in 
French. He thanked her, nodded, and said: 

“A man may go into battle an atheist, but he comes out believing 
in God.” 

Margery translated as she read the same chapter in French. 
Then she read it again, translating it into German. She dared not 
risk any other chapter. 

“If only I knew where to find the right things!” she deplored in- 


TRAPPED 


107 


wardly, as she laid the Bible on a table near the young priest. “But 
it is useless to pray for this sort of help. If I am to know the Bible 
I must study it.” 

While moving around the ward in the execution of her duties as 
a nurse she found herself thinking: 

If I had only divided some of the time I have given to reading 
popular novels, with this great Book! These men may die wthout one 
ray of light,—because I have been merely a silly girl!” 


CHAPTER XXX. 

An Unexpected Military Order. 

The following afternoon a young nun came to relieve Margery 
for her recreation hour. 

“I thought the Abbe' arranged it for me yesterday,” Margery 
said involuntarily. 

“The nun smiled. “No the Mother Superior has ordered it, and 
I am one of those who are on duty to see that you leave your ward, 
and to take your place until you return.” 

All that this meant—and was going to mean, to nurses not 
trained to arduous duty, Margery did not then realize. She found 
her Bible and started out in search of Abbe' Gerard. 

The day was not cold, but gloomy; the clouds still hung low 
in the gray air. A storm was brewing. To Margery this seemed 
natural for a war clouded world. She turned toward the beach, 
recalling Dallas' quick stride beside her two days before. A stiff 
wind had overturned the seat where they had rested, and now lifted 
the tufts of dying grass on the hard beach. A regiment of soldiers 
were drilling, where all had been quiet the previous day. The 
uniforms were new, and many wore their citizens suits, but each had 
the war-face—a grim determination to win back all that “had been 
stolen.” As the girl watched the drill, moving in perfect unison, 
she saw the swaying line was followed, as in England, by eager-eyed 
small boys, sticks in hand, instead of guns, and without the Briton 
blandishment of paper-cocked hats. The small faces were sharply 
serious, pathetically like their elders; while they imitated every order 
with the awkward grace of childhood. They appeared in deadly 
earnest. Margery knew they understood the dark side of war and it 
was not all play, as it was with the English children. It was a 
positive relief to her when the regiment—in executing a movement— 
swung so suddenly that the tiny soldiers were compelled to scurry 
in every direction. They shouted merrily from their various points 


108 


TRAPPED 


of safety, and waved their caps in childish fun, cheering the big 
regiment. 

At the sound—it touched Margery, to see—each soldiers’ tightly 
closed lips relax into a smile. 

The youth of her rushed out to meet that smile. “Joy is not dead,’’ 
she thought, “It is only sleeping. It will surely waken again, for all 
the world.” 

A familiar voice caused her to turn sharply. Abbe' Gerard was 
in the midst of the children, laughing with them. It seemed to 
Margery that he fitted everywhere perfectly. When the soldiers 
—followed by the “kid brigade,” marched away, Margery shame¬ 
facedly confessed to the Abbe' her utter ignorance of the book she had 
in her hand. 

The kindly eyes searching hers suddenly filled with tears. She 
realized he was feeling that amidst the storm and anguish of war 
her soul was being born anew. She had not thought of her feeble 
gropings as such a blessed thing, but the value that he set upon her 
effort seemed to lift and steady her. To her infinite relief he ex¬ 
pressed no surprise, and his beaming face turned a sympathy on 
her that promised all she needed before he spoke. 

He led her to the overturned bench and set it up, and asked 
her to be seated, before he spoke. 

For a moment she feared she could 1 think of nothing but Dallas 
sitting there on their own settee, and she did not hear the first 
of what the Abbe' said. 

“Wisdom may come by inspiration,” were the words that drifted 
to her, “but God will not give to us what we can gain for ourselves.” 

“Not—even if we pray—for it?” hesitated Margery. 

“Few spiritual gifts are more misunderstood or abused than 
prayer,” he answered gently. “Prayer alone accomplishes little. It 
gives the grace to seek, to find, to do the thing desired—if we pray 
earnestly, and with the feeling, ‘Thy will be done.* ” 

As she prayed “Save Dallas!” could she ever say “Thy will be 
done!” 

She thought she would tell the Abbe' how she had prayed for 
help the first night she received the wounded, and how she opened 
her eyes to see him standing there. But she said something quite 
different. 

“I thought—anything we asked—in His name would be granted”. 

“Have you ever considered just what ‘in His name’ means? If 
you are sure that the thing is what Jesus would have prayed for un¬ 
der the same circumstances—your prayer will be answered to the ful¬ 
ness of your faith. We may always pray for strength to perform any 
duty,” his beautiful smile seemed to flash over her slim young 
nands, lying idle for the moment, apart from their dread 1 task; “and 
for strength to bear any test or pain—and for the Spirit that 
filled the Apostles. But we can’t expect to escape the pain and strug- 


TRAPPED 


109 


gle of life; but to grow elastic, and big-hearted and hopeful, as we 
pass through it. We are to pray for the growth that turns difficulties 
into glory, until we come to the many mansions in the Father’s 
house—” 

He paused abruptly. He saw that he had passed beyond Mar¬ 
gery s capacity for understanding, and he added, half-quizzically, 
“Would you ask intoxicating drink in the name of Miss Willard, or 
liberty in the name of—the Kaiser ?” 

“Certainly not,” said Margery, still not understanding. 

“Just so we should not make requests of God the Father, ex¬ 
cept as we know God the Son would approve.” 

“Then we cannot pray for anything we wish—not even the 
thing we want most?” cried Margery keenly disappointed. 

“Indeed, but yes,” exclaimed the Abbe' quickly, as if fearing he 
had misled a soul struggling for the light. “We can pray for any¬ 
thing we wish—if it is not wicked—only we must be willing to suT>- 
mit to His will. We can’t know always whether the thing desired 
is—in the spirit of His name—and we must submit to delay or re¬ 
fusal, if it is best.” 

He took the Bible from her as he spoke, and with his pen 
began marking chapters and verses which she could well read to the 
wounded or dying. With the ease of habit, he turned familiarly to 
what he sought, from Genesis to Revelations. Margery’s amaze¬ 
ment at his ready knowledge betrayed itself in her face. 

He answered her gently. “It is only natural that I should— 
in a way—know the Book. I have made it the study of my life. 
Each day, now, I discover wonderful things in it. It is the only 
volume that answers every cry of the human heart.” 

“The wounded men listened with such eagerness to it, and I 
could see it brought them comfort. I was sorry that I dared read 
only what the young priest asked for, so I translated it over and 
over.’’ 

“You translate it?” echoed Abbe' Gerard. 

“As I read,” replied the girl complacently. “I can translate—” 

“Not this book!” interrupted the Abbe' reverently. “The men 
who first translated it did it on their knees—after many consulta¬ 
tions as to the meaning of each passage. No unorthorized person 
should attempt to translate this book.” Seeing her crest-fallen 
face he added. “I can give you one in our language and one in 
French and you can use them as you need.” 

As Margery thanked him the mutter of distant thunder caused 
them to look anxiously to the northeast, fearing the Belgians had 
been forced back. It was a relief when a flash of lightning followed 
by another explosion of thunder warned them to hurry from the 
beach. It began to rain as they entered the hospital. 

Passing through the reception hall Margery saw the flowers 
she had brought with her still fresh on the table, where each day 


110 


TRAPPED 


a wounded soldier had renewed the water in the jar. As she looked 
at them she thought: “They have outlived many a man who was big 
and strong when they were plucked. He is now in the ground, while 
these fragile blossoms still live. Her eyes traveled around the room. 
A fresh contingent of wounded were among the convalescents. They 
too were listening to the gay songs of the graphophone. Abbe' Ger¬ 
ard's progress was arrested by the soldiers crowding around him 
just as the children had done. Others spoke to Margery, wanting 
news from the front. She was glad she knew nothing that might 
be called news.. With the Allies retreating steadily it was better not 
to hear. 

As the Abbe' talked, jested, and greeted 1 the soldiers, he con¬ 
tinued marking the Bible he still held in his hand. “Your recrea¬ 
tion hour I know is closing,” he said under his breath to Margery, 
“and you want to take the book ready for service.” 

One of the soldiers seeing the Bible, remarked suddenly: “The 
day before I was shot, I was reading in Ezekiel, the 17th Chapter, 
about the two eagles—how they spread themselves, and their utter 
downfall. Could they be a prophecy of Austria and Germany?” 

The Abbe' admitted that it might be possible; and turning to the 
chapter in the English Bible he held—did the very thing he had 
just told Margery not to do. He translated as he read aloud.. 

For a moment the girl was too shocked to breathe. Then she 
loyally defended the priest. “He knows what it really means, but I 
do not. That makes all the difference possible,” she told herself. 
Down in her heart she felt that after all, the priest was human, liable 
to faults, like herself; and' this made him somehow nearer; and she 
felt encouraged that she too, with her imperfections might be 
traveling in the right way. 

Abbe' Gerard was utterly unconscious of having failed to follow 
his own precepts. His admission that the prophecy might have 
been illustrative of Austria and Germany, brought out quick ques¬ 
tions, retorts, audible whispers, and a buzz of excitement. As Mar¬ 
gery received her Bible from the Priest, and thanked him, she left 
him confronting eager, questioning men. 

Four days later when she went again to the reception room to 
see if she had any mail—in the pile she had spied on the table— 
she was amazed to see the hall crowded with men, with Bibles in 
hand, pressing about a young American minister, a Red Cross 
volunteer. He was being torpedoed by questions, that seemed to 
have taken him unawares. He was looking about him is if the 
Bible-studying soldiers were an unusual though pleasant surprise— 
yet Margery plainly saw that the prophetic turn of his quiz left 
him a bit bewildered. 

The lion and bear in Daniel plainly meant England and Russia, 
didn’t they? The terrible beast with teeth of iron, was Germany? 
Could the leopard mean Belgium with her Allies, France and the 


TRAPPED 


111 


colonies? Evidently they had argued the questions among them¬ 
selves hotly, and each was wanting to find a champion in the minis¬ 
ter. Margery saw his American humor coming to his rescue, and she 
knew he was going to be equal to the situation. 

She felt relieved as his rich young voice rang out decisively: 

“Friends, I have just finished studying these prophecies and 
various interpretatians of them. Its such a pleasure to find you in¬ 
terested, but before we take up these questions in detail, let nte con¬ 
gratulate you upon your interest in the Book of Books, that shows 
the soldier how to die as well as to live. I am just back from the 
Front where some of these convalescents will soon be.” 

A tense pause filled the hall, broken only by the breathing of 
the soldiers as they pressed a little nearer, to the speaker. Margery 
knew the man was turning the questions of intellectual curiosity 
to personal ones. 

iShe moved softly to the table. On it lay a letter addressed to 
her in Lady Florence’s writing, and a florist’s box. She was in her 
room and had torn off the cover and stood gazing at a mass of dewy 
roses before she realized how keenly she hoped they were from 
Dallas. Something told her he alone could have accomplished the 
miracle of turning back war terrors, for an instant, with a message 
of bloom and fragrance. She turned' the card over and read his 
name! Then she sank down beside them and cried softly, her pretty 
nose buried in their hearts—pricked by their thorns. Tears like 
those the old Margery shed so painlessly rushed down her face. 

“I’m behaving like a school cub who never saw a flower before 
in her life,” she sniffled. 

Then she lifted the roses and laid them a glory of red on her 
small white bed, and stood! over them, inhaling their sweetness, re¬ 
membering with a throat that ached, the joy and sun of life before 
war had blistered existance. 

“No man ever did a more beautiful thing—than to send me a 
message in such terms of beauty. But how did he ever get them 
here?” 

Some one knocked at her door. Before she could speak or 
move, the Mother Superior entered. 

“We have just learned,” she said simply, looking straight at 
Margery’s tear-flushed face, “that France needs nurses more than 
Belgium. Here we have the nuns. There is a call for volunteers 
who speak two languages, to go nearer the front—somewhere in 

France. Several nurses and two surgeons have promised. The 

Abbe’ says you speak two languages. Do you want to go?” 

Margery’s hand fell away from the long stems of the roses. 

“Yes,” she said simply, “If you really think nurses are more 
needed in France.” 

“We know so,” was the quiet reply. “You will leave in an hour.” 

The next sixty minutes were busy, but Margery found time to 



112 


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carry her flowers to the convalescent ward, and to bid the boy and 
the puppy good-by. The young priest was not in the cot where she 
had last seen him. A nurse on duty interpreting Margery’s search¬ 
ing glance, formed noislessly with her lips the word—“dead.” 

Through a blur Margery saw that many of the cots held strange 
faces, and she went quickly out. Abbe' Gerard was with a dying man 
and she could not see him. “Tell him he has helped me more than 
he can ever know,” she begged the Mother Superior when she bade 
her goodby. 

Then she found her way to the hospital office and asked for 
a telegraph blank. She wrote a few words of thanks to Dallas, and 
told him she had been ordered nearer the Front. She was afraid 
to be more definite because the censor might not pass the message. 
She had only a split minute for the transaction. The auto was at 
the entrance, and; the nurses entering it as she finished 1 her brief note. 

As they passed the Death chamber Margery turned her face 
away. She felt she could be of more service if she were not so 
harrowed all the time. Maybe this call for nurese was to take care of 
the hopelessly injured. It was better—this “somewhere in France”— 
toward which she now set her face. 

She strained her eyes from the car window for a last look at 
the beach where she and Hope had walked. 

Dallas was in France. Perhaps—oh! perhaps!! Then that 
vivid imagination of hers, caught and held her! 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

At The Junction. 

When the Red Cross party reached the station where they were 
to stop, they found it merely the junction of two railroads. A force 
guarded the frontier end of each. Those who were wounded near 
the north terminal were carried through to Paris. Those, however, 
who were wounded in the east, were obliged to change cars at this 
place, and for these, the surgeons and nurses were needed. 

The party was dismayed to find there was no hospital at all at 
this crossing. The war had come upon France too sudenly for ad¬ 
justment at once—in every particular. The army required trans¬ 
portation. Equipment; munitions and food were imperative; and 
must be looked to first. The entire frontier was in danger and must 
be guarded. The enemy was upon France before she knew at what 
point the attack would be launched. She had expected it from an 
entirely different direction. The Germans -were entering through 
Belgium—owing to their pledge and treaty, this was totally unex¬ 
pected. Therefore this front lacked emergency hospitals—or outfits, 
that could be shifted from one spot to another. And there were no 


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113 


nuns in France. They had been sent away—and the number of 
trained nurses was appallingly insufficient. All knew the wounded 
would be well cared for, as soon as the hospital department was 
reached. But France’s, not England’s army, was now holding back 
the German invasion—for the world! The United States and Eng¬ 
land were sending Red Cross aid. The ship from America, however, 
had not landed, and England’s assistance was arriving but slowly. 

The nurses knew that there were no better hospitals on earth 
than those France had equipped long before, in the frontier 
towns where she anticipated attack in case of a conflict. But the 
unexpectedness of the war, had demanded aid where she was not 
prepared to give it. This junction, with one or two small farm 
houses near the station, was one of them. 

Shortly after the arrival of the Red Cross party a train of flat 
cars, loaded with French soldiers stopped at the station. The soldiers 
were wearing uniforms of bright red and blue, and they waved gaily 
to the nurses, while a few boxes were being dropped off. 

Before the train pulled out, the surgeon examined the cases. 

“There,” he said to the nurses, “is our entire hospital.” 

The soldiers who had been sitting on the boxes, jestily took their 
seats on the floor, or stood by the frail railing, waving good-bye as 
the train crawled away, through a cut in the hills. 

Margery followed the nurses into the station. There were two 
small waiting rooms, and an immense freight room, open on two sides, 
and a smaller freight room where luggage could be locked over night. 

“No cots,” said Margery, “no tables, no chairs_” 

“No equipment whatever, except, the medicines and surgical 
dressings in those boxes just thrown off,” the Corps Major completed, 
“and no way, just now, to open the boxes.” 

“And the train with the wounded arrives. ...” 

“Just after nightfall. We’ve no time to lose.” 

One of the nurses came back from interviewing the station mas¬ 
ter. “He is an old man, and the telegraph operator also, and can’t 
leave to find help for us. But I am going to that house over yonder 
and see if I can’t get some women, and brooms and mops to prepare 
these floors—for the wounded. I see nothing else, that we can do.” 

“And I will go to the farm house near here,” announced the sur- 
geon,“and see if I can’t get men and axes to open these boxes.” 

In a little while they returned, bringing with them two men and 
three boys, axes, brooms, and mops. 

“Four women promised that they would come and help us after 
dark” said Margery almost gleefully, “they seemed so glad to help.” 

Floors were hastily swept, scrubbed and dried under the direction 
of the nurses, and the doctors superintended the opening of the cases. 
There was a pump just outside the station, but the water was of poor 
quality. 

“There is no way of boiling it,” said Margery in dismay, looking 


114 


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about. “I wish we could find the stove that belonged to that chimney 
there..” 

The station master, when questioned knew nothing about the 
©tove. There had been one, he admitted; but he was filling the place 
of the former station agent, who was now with the colors. 

They shuddered at the thought of the pain that bathing 
wounds in cold water would cause. 

“How can we do it!” wailed one of the nurses. 

“We—have nothing in which to bathe them at all,” cried another, 
even more alarmed. 

“Use tulbs,” one of the doctors suggested. “I'll go over to the 
farm house and get them.” 

He came back, with a few buckets. “This is certainly the simple 
life here,” he tried to grin. “Not a tub in the neighborhood. The 
women wash their clothes in a stream a mile away.” 

The nurses turned white. The outlook for suffering, which they 
could do little to relieve, was almost more than they could brace them¬ 
selves to meet. 

“By George!” the surgeon who was opening the boxes, sung out 
blankly. He was surrounded by the empty boxes and piles of ab¬ 
sorbent cotton, bandages, and medicine which he had called the entire 
hospital. 

“No antiseptics!” he groaned. 

The nurses cried out in a shocked chorus. 

An unmistakable odor filled the air, as the ether bottles were 
lifted out. Some had been broken. 

The surgeon, who was the Corps Major, immediately went to the 
telegraph instrument, and had the old man transmit a message asking 
for the antiseptics, and more ether, explaining the conditions, and re¬ 
questing these supplies be rushed to the junction with a party of 
nurses and surgeons. 

It was decided to receive the wounded in the freight shed. The 
empty boxes were placed “side-up”, along the two walls of the shed, 
the medicines and lamps for boiling the instruments were placed on, 
their tops and the surgical dressings and absorbent cotton were put 
inside the boxes, the board next the ground not being removed. It was 
a crude cupboard, but these supplies had to be as close at hand as 
possible. 

“Now for the operating table,” said one of the surgeons. 

The entire medical staff went out to look for boards, and returned 
with three long, thick planks, which they laid across, and nailed to the 
tops of barrels, which were filled with weighty loads. Over 
this they pinned securely a rubber cloak. 

It was almost dark now, and the nurses and doctors were al¬ 
ready a tired lot. They went to one of the farm houses for supper. 
When they returned they slumped into the stiff uncomfortable seats 
of the waiting room. The benches were divided by arms and it was 


TRAPPED 


115 


impossible to stretch out and get a little rest, though all were sadly 
in need of it. 

One of the boys brought them some candles, lamps, and a few 
torches, which was all they had to light the operations and wound 
dressing. 

To the delight of the surgeon however, Margery brought out 
her field outfit, a gift from Lord Dalhousie. iShe hung the case 
which formed a double shelf, to two nails on the wall, and showed the 
nurses the medicines indexed with metal cards, the names printed in 
scarlet. 

“I could almost find them in the dark/’ Margery said, “though 
this is never necessary, as you see.” She touched the spring of a 
tiny electric torch inside the case, which shed a glow over the shelf. 
“By this light I can read the temperature of the thermometer, without 
disturbing the patient.” 

They were interrupted by the entrance of the operator. 

“A big fight has been going on all day,” he said. “The French are 
holding a point while the main army retreats, and the slaughter is 
awful. Several trainloads of wounded will come in during the night. 
You can read the message by my light,” he invited the surgeons. “The 
reason we are in the dark,” he explained to the nurses,” is because 
our electric wires have been tampered with by a spy. I’ve telegraphed 
for them to be mended again. They were fixed once.” 

A little later the first train load of wounded pulled in as gently 
as that in Belgium. The soldiers detailed to assist in removing the 
wounded were as tender in handling them as a mother with her baby. 
It was the same routine, cruel, yet reasonable, that Margery had 
learned in Belgium. 

Those less seriously wounded were first assisted off, and led to 
the seats in the little waiting rooms, where they must suffer until 
the more badly injured received attention. Then those on litters were 
laid on the cold stone floor of the freight room, without even a pillow 
to ease them. 

The dead were next lifted out and reverently laid on the outer 
pavement, with the jutting roof-edge as a shelter. They were placed 
side by side, but as the number increased, owing to the lack of space, 
they were gently laid one upon another. When a soldier within the 
station died, his body was removed to make more room for the seri¬ 
ously wounded. As Margery passed hurriedly and saw the accumu¬ 
lation of dead she shuddered. 'She knew how it would grow before 
morning, and she knew, too, the long trench that would be dug, and 
the wooden cross, with the wreath above it, that would mark the last 
resting place of these heroes. 

The glory and panoply of war! Bah! 

She glanced into the waiting rooms on her way back to the 
freight room. The greater number were too weak to sit at all, and 


116 


TRAPPED 


lay upon the floor. But their pain was borne in silence. There was 
not a sound from those prostrate, or hunched in the seats. 

All night the surgeon and nurses labored to relieve pain, and to 
save life. The majority of the wounds were considered “fresh”—not 
more than twenty-four hours old. Properly treated all might re¬ 
cover. But there was more blood than Margery ever imagined. The 
stone floor was red; and though the farm women tried with mops and 
buckets to expunge it, the flow was so continuous, that the surgeons 
and nurses, kneeling by their patients, soon had their white uniforms 
scarlet. 

A soldier may not choose his spot to fight in, and most of these 
had fought hours waist-deep in a mountain stream, and later in a 
muddy road, before they were wounded. Their uniforms were stiff 
with mixed blood and dirt. 

Though it was only the first of September there was a biting 
wind from the north, and this shelter did not protect them. The 
wounded shivered from the cold as well as from the loss of blood; and 
Margery shivered from the horror of it all! 

Over one thousand five hundred wounded were brought to the 
junction during the night, and more than four hundred died. There 
were three surgeons and seven nurses to care for them—when im¬ 
mediate attention meant everything. The four farm women assisted 
them on six hour shifts, and the two men remained all night. The 
women relighted the lamps when blown out or when the electric 
light sputtered out—which was nearly half the time. They also held 
the candles so that an operation begun in electric light could be fin¬ 
ished without it, or wonderingly they held Margery’s electric torch, 
to throw additional light on a more serious operation. The men 
pumped water, assisted in mopping up the blood, and carried out the 
dead. 

A little after dawn, the women, who had left at midnight, re¬ 
turned, followed by several boys and girls bearing buckets of milk, 
and huge boilers of coffee. A troop of little children brought up the 
rear, with strings of cups over their shoulders. 

Margery’s eyes filled with tears as she saw them solemnly mov¬ 
ing towards the station. She knew many of her patients had had no 
food for twenty-four hours. They bore the milk around, lifting the 
heads of men, weak as infants, who the day before were lusty with 
fighting strength. 

An hour later a train from the north stopped at the station and 
all living were tenderly taken on board and carried to hospitals. 
With a grip at her heart the girl noticed that several were billeted 
“hopeless.” 

Another train rumbled in, greeted by the cheers of the boys with¬ 
out. The nurses were too tired to move. As the train started though, 


TRAPPED 


117 


Margery heard a strong, boyish voice cry: “Three cheers for Eng¬ 
land !” 

Instantly she sprang to the seat and gazed out of the window 
above her. 

“I’ve heard that voice before! Whose can it be? It was not 
Dallas Hope’s. Then whose?” 

From a window of the compartment of the moving train a cap 
waved, withdrew, and a khaki sleeve appeared and dropped a pack¬ 
age. The boys screamed with delight as they pounced upon it; and 
she saw it contained boxes of sweets! She settled down trying to 
fit the voice to some one she knew. Though it was familiar, it was 
unfamiliar. 

“Who can it be?” she asked herself wearily, taking her seat to 
wait for Elise, and closing her eyes for a moment. 

The wonderful ring of gladness in it, was so utterly removed from 
the terrble night and morning—that had suddenly become the whole 
world—that it startled her. She had fogotten that men could be 
gay—even outside the war zone. 

“He is evidently very young, and very thoughtless, and very 
inexperienced, to be so happy when he is whirling into a pit of— 
death! Worse than death—maybe.” 

The merry voice sounded through her memory again—with its 
haunting familiarity. As she groped to locate it, sitting bolt up¬ 
right in her seat, she fell asleep. She was roused by the entrance of 
the old station-master who came in and handed the corps major a 
telegram. It was an answer to the request for help. He read it out 
to the weary group. 

“All supplies, the nurses and surgeons on way. Electric lights 
will be repaired and guarded.” 

They raised a feeble shout at the newe. 

After breakfast the nurses received orders to remain at the 
farm house and sleep; but Margery heard the consultation between 
the surgeons and the farm men and boys before she went to her room. 

Two of the boys offered to go in a cart to the nearest village 
and buy the needed stove. They were also given money to get kettles 
and metal tubs and lamps. Lights and boiled water were necessities. 

Margery put her blood-soaked uniform in water, and managed 
a sponge bath before she went to bed. As she undressed a card fell 
from inside her uniform blouse. It was the card Dallas had sent 
with her flowers, and she had slipped it in her bosom in her hasty de¬ 
parture from the hospital. As she turned it over now she saw 
scrawled on the back of it. “Please—please try to take care of your¬ 
self.” 

The horrors of the night had wiped everything else out of her 
mind; but the sense of Dallas near her, that she had felt before, came 
over her again. It was almost as if he had touched her sleeve—this 
time with reverent pleading—to care for herself. She weakened un- 


118 


TRAPPED 


der the spell of his imagined tenderness, tears rushing down her face. 
“I don’t see why my hair has not turned white,” she sobbed as she 
brushed out its waves of light. She wiped off the tears, however, 
speedily, with the practical idea of getting rest—every minute pos¬ 
sible—in order to return to her work fit. She would not admit the 
feeling that she hurried to rest because Dallas had reached a hand 
over the distance between them and—figuratively—pushed her into 
bed. 

At four o’clock when she went an duty at the station, she found 
the doctors exhausted, and just leaving for sleep and refreshment 
before the train brought in its freight of human suffering. They 
had been at work all morning. The dead were buried, the floors 
scoured, the stove was in place, and heating boilers of water; and in 
addition to the barrel and plank substitute for an operating table, 
stood two other tables, made out of lumber obtained by knocking to 
pieces the divided benches in the waiting room. 

Margery re-arranged her supplies on her box-table, and made 
every possible preparation for the wounded. She tried the electric 
lights and found them still uncertain. She trimmed the candles and 
lamps, and prayed that the train bearing the ten surgeons and nurses 
and antiseptics, would arrive before the wounded. 

Then she sat down to use her time of waiting in writing to Lady 
Florence. She stared blankly at the paper before her. It seemed 
so utterly impossible to convey anything of the realities around her 
to the countess 1 —in that other world of London. 

“I was there, only six nights ago, and dancing at a dinner party,” 
Margery recalled. “This,” her eyes swept the crude hospital pre¬ 
parations around her, “was going on then! The dinners and dances 
are going now! If they knew, how could they even smile?” 

Then she was fired with the feeling that she must tell them— 
that she must write Lady Florence—and she must rouse London. 

She wrote rapidly trying to describe exactly the terrible con¬ 
ditions of the wounded the previous night. 

“England seems asleep while her best are dying for her—and 
dying without the care that is their due. Thousands could be saved 
if more nurses would volunteer. Even the ignorant peasants here 
have helped us save life. I thank you hourly for having had me 
trained; and I am so proud to feel that you are supervising the hos¬ 
pital work. But speed it up! Beg for nurses, surgeons, equipment I 
If your committee could just realize the frightful need here, you 
could not eat nor sleep till sufficient supplies were on the way....” 

The whistle of the train cut the silence. Was it supplies, or the 
wounded? 


TRAPPED 


119 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

Amos Takes the First Steps Towards the Goal of His Oath. 

Near the end of August 1914, Clarence Holt, sitting in his pri¬ 
vate office at the X. Y. Z. building, scowling at the scareheads of his 
newspaper announcing the deadly advance of the Teutons, was sur¬ 
prised to see Amos Russell open the door and walk in. 

“It is time, young man, that you came back,” Holt said tartly, 
lowering the paper with an unsuccessful attempt to look stern. 

“I dropped in to tell you,” said Amos hastily, “that I want to go 
to the front at once. I have applied to purchase the position of 
second Lieutenant in the Westmorland Guards!” 

“The devil you have!” exclaimed Holt. “Why, you know nothing 
of drilling. You are not prepared to take the examinations.” 

“Try me!” smiled Amos. 

Holt cleared his throat. “I served in India, boy, before I en¬ 
tered this office. Stand out there and I’ll show you that it takes 
time to make a soldier.” 

He gave a few orders—patronizingly. 

Amos executed them instantly. “That dope is out of date. Try 
me on something modern.” 

“The mischief it is!” exclaimed Holt. Then he flung down the 
newspaper, and pointed to a chair. “Sit down there, you hair-brained 
young cub! Sit down, I tell you! Now what’s all this nonsense of 
throwing up your career in this office?” 

Amos flushed, but he met Holt’s eyes steadily. 

“I want to go to the front,” he said. 

Clarence Holt looked at him a moment. “Do you remember, 
Amos, when your mother brought you here, a little boy, and you sat, 
just where you are sitting now? Your mother told me she wanted 
you to find your career in this office. I advised her about your stud¬ 
ies, and explained the advantages you would receive here;and as you 
shaped up with your work, and showed you were made of good ma¬ 
terial, I grew more interested in you.” 

“I remember it all,” Amos said in a low voice. He saw his 
mother, graceful, beautiful, leaning from the chair that now stood 
empty, drinking in anxiously every word Holt uttered. 

“I have been proud of your advancement, since you entered the 
offce,” Holt went on in a aggrieved tone. “You know I have thought 
of you as my understudy.... ” 

Amos made a quick gesture of pain. “I knew!” he gasped, “but 
we are at war....” 

“You are very useful here. I don’t see why you should go. 
Besides, Amos,” Holt continued shrewdly “you are impulsive. My 
training and the routine in this office has held you down, and you 
appear deliberate. But you know, and I know, that you are liable to 


120 


TRAPPED 


go off half-cocked. This is an impulse. There is no reason for you 
to go to the front. You will later fill this position I fill now, better 
than I have done. You have a superior mind—and you have had 
better preparation.” 

Amos looked up amazed at hearing Holt, who was not modest, 
speaking in this way of his ability. He saw Holt was in earnest. 

“Your reserve, Russell, your honesty, your dependable qualities 
of character—when you are older and know men better—set off by 
that long, good-looking six feet of yours, will make you a leader in 
the highest sense of the word. I was away from London when you 
resigned. When I returned I was provoked that it was accepted. 
I should never have allowed it. Why risk your life when a man of 
less ability and no training for statesmanship, could fill a gap in 
Lord Kitchener’s ranks as well as you? Why do you seek renown 
at the cannon’s mouth?” In his mind Holt added, “You will more 
likely find death,” as he looked at the tall, slender young man. 

“There are other equally important ways of serving the nation,” 
Holt laid his hand persuasively on Russell’s shoulder. “Consider 
well.” 

Holt paused as he saw the strong chin and the positive lips of 
the younger man grow firmer. 

“I have considered well,” Amos replied in a low strained voice, 
his eyes on that empty chair. Into his mind flashed smilar mo¬ 
ments of choice in his past life. When a decision had to be made 
his mother had allowed him to make it, advising him to consider well 
before declaring it. No matter what the decision, she helped in 
every possible way to execute it. If later, he found he had chosen 
unwisely, she allowed no time wasted in vain regrets. Other sub¬ 
jects were presented and again he made a choice. “It is only by 
experience you can learn to choose wisely,” she had told him. He 
wondered if she knew, as Holt did, that he was impulsive naturally? 
That though he had learned to ponder a question, he knew instantly 
what he desired to do, aibout every issue that presented itself. These 
memories that darted through his consciousness as quickly as light, 
left as their final impression the emphasis his mother had placed 
upon his doing the thing he had decided upon. 

“I have considered, and decided to go, if I can get the position of 
second lieutenant.” 

“Your position here?“ pressed Holt. “Your career?” 

Again the boy’s memory showed him his mother, looking at him 
in vivid pride, as he announced his last promotion to her. 

A queer torture wnitened his face. With evident effort but with 
no softening of the mouth he replied. “If I live to come back and if 
you will let me, I shall be only too glad to enter your office.” He 
paused to gain control of his voice. “I shall keep my oath,” he said 
to himself, “if I pay my life for it.” 

“I shall appreciate it, now, immensely, Mr. Holt, if you will do 


TRAPPED 121 

away with as much red tape as possible—and get me to the front 
within a week,” he said aloud after a pause. 

Amos rose as he spoke. Holt rose slowly, too. He was remem¬ 
bering his own enlistment and service, and the fact that it had 
broadened and helped him in many ways. A forgotten enthusiasm 
for his country, a spark that office routine had dulled, glowed a 
moment in him. The sight of this manly young fellow, twenty years 
his junior, whom he had looked upon as his successor, almost as his 
son—gripped at his throat. 

Holt’s voice was a little queer as he said !| “If nothing else 
will answer—I”ll do all I can for you/' 

To Clarence Holt’s surprise, and genuine regret, Amos Russell 
passed a creditable examination. The day he received his com¬ 
mission he left for “somewhere in France.” 

* * * * * 

As Amos entered the train he was greeted heartily by the sold¬ 
iers already in the compartment. 

One slapped him on the back. “Here, old scout, is a squad for 
you to lick into shape.” He was presented to the men, who met him 
with a friendliness and cordiality that appealed to the heart-lonely 
boy, as nothing had appealed—except Margery—since his mother’s 
death. He knew he would like the service. The men were laughing, 
jesting, extending greetings to the newcomers. In a sense that he 
had never felt before, Amos knew that he “belonged.” He was as 
young, too, as they. He realized he had felt as old as the men in the 
office. Besides he had a community of interest with these men— 
which he had never had before with youth. By the time he reached 
France he knew more men than he had ever met—except in a formal 
business way. He felt as if he had suddenly passed from a cold, 
empty room, into a sunny out-of-doors where everybody greeted him 
warmly; women smiled, and children took his hands. For such 
incidents occurred at the stations. He felt a re-birth. War was not 
as black as it was painted. He soon found himself laughing, jioiking, 
and welcoming the newcomers. The secret and delightful wonder 
was that he could do it as well as the others—that they saw no dif¬ 
ference between him and themselves. 

He chatted with his squad that he was taking along to fill 
vacancies caused by casualties in the Westmorland Guards. On 
the train, on the boat—and again on the train, he treated the men 
with consideration, and boyish attentions. At the station he bought 
chocolate, tobacco, fruit, and cakes for them, confessing with en¬ 
thusiasm that this was a lark for him. He did not say his first. 
“Of course there will be a lot of discipline after we reach camp,” 
he told them. When they arrived at their destination his artificial 
reserve and deliberation were about rubbed off, for under the veneer 
of proud aloftness, was a very real man. 

When they scrambled off the train, Russell was at first be- 


122 


TRAPPED 


wildered by the sight that met his eyes. The whole earth was 
brown with khaki, and alive with soldiers. He had read of divi¬ 
sions, corps, and armies being sent to the front, but the terms had 
not conveyed the truth to hs imagination. He had watched regi¬ 
ments marching through London streets, and taking part in sham 
battles; but none of it approached the present scene. To his civil¬ 
ian eyes it appeared an invincible force. Yet he knew it was only 
a fraction of the Allies strength. Then he remembered that the Allies 
faced overwhelming numbers, and were waiting for reinforcemetns 
before attempting to drive the enemy back. He tried to summon up 
a vision of the German force; and realized something of the enormous 
struggle that was gripping Europe. 

As he looked about him he tried to guage the master brain that 
held the whole plan, that directed these, and all other corps, and 
armies; that not only moved men but considered available munitions, 
food, trains, and the great commercial enterprises and manufactories 
that lay at the base line, even the topography of the part of the 
country where these men would fight. For the first time Amos got 
a glimpse of the magnitude of war. It was grand! Small wonder 
that veterans worshipped their old commanders! A distant boom 
of cannon broke on his ear. It thrilled. The blood of ancestors who 
had fought and loved vast martial energy, throbbed in his veins. 
Of course men were ready to die in war! He had already lived 
more since leaving London than all the pale, regulated years of the 
office of the X. Y. Z. He ached to join the regiment and get into 
the game. He wanted to be part of this marvelous machine that 
moved at the command of that master-mind! He did not realize 
that he was tasting fellowship for the first time, in his peculiarly 
lonely life. 

He felt his heart thumping in his chest when he presented his 
credentials, and inquired his way to Company C, of the Westmorland 
Guards. 

An orderly consulted a chart; and Amos, while waiting, looked 
through the tent door and saw the soldiers as individuals. They 
were tired—some fagged out. A battalion—or what was left of it— 
limped by. The men had been firing all night,” holding an important 
point,” he heard one of them say, and 1 had been relieved at daylight. 
His eye took in the dirt and dust on the men and their expression, 
that he afterwards learned was the “cannon face.” He saw, too, 
heads, legs, arms hastily bandaged, with red spots oozing through. 
It never occurred to him that some of the men fallen from the ranks 
at that “important point” might be fed through hospital channels 
into Margery’s girlish hands. He had no more consciousness of this 
aspect of war than Margery herself had, when she whizzed out of 
the London station towards stricken Belgium. 

Amos saluted the haggard men as they passed. Instantly each 
man responded, smiling, nodding, or waving his hand, with the same 


TRAPPED 


123 


good cheer, and comraderie that had warmed him among the soldiers. 

“They are fine/’ Amos thought, “just a bit off their feed—and 
sleep!” 

He received the slip the orderly gave him containing writ¬ 
ten directions. And Amos, feeling in wonderland, marched away at 
the head of his small unit of the Allies* army. 

He passed exhausted men, lying asleep where they had dropped 
down for a moment’s rest. A movable kitchen, with cooks serving, 
straddled almost across his way. The soldiers, who were snatching 
a hasty meal, were evidently marching toward the south. He met 
others marching in the opposite direction. Horses relieved of their 
saddles for a brief space were being rubbed down. All was move¬ 
ment, commotion. He knew that under the seeming confusion there 
was a definite plan, and that every man in that army had volunteered 
to give his life—if necessary—to carry that plan to fruition. He was 
glad that he had come. Glad in an entirely new way. He was so 
enthralled by the excitement of it all that he forgot the reason for 
his coming. When he remembered he regretted his unalterable 
resolution—because —it might shorten his stay in the army! 

A member of Company C stepped out to receive him. 

“Loring is my name/’ he said cordially. “You are our second 
lieutenant.” He glanced at the papers Amos handed him. “I will 
just show you and your men your position in camp—that is, if wait¬ 
ing to be ordered to the front any minute, may be called a camp,” 
Loring then swung off beside Amos and his squad. 

Amos frankly acknowledged he knew nothing about army life, 
and any information about his duties would be appreciated. 

“Pll keep an eye on you,” Loring promised; “but you’ll fall 
in with very little trouble.” 

They exchanged the latest news from London, and the front, 
and by the time they reached “camp”, Amos felt that he had been 
friends with Loring all his life, and promised to join him shortly for 
mess. 

“The fellow is a gentleman, affable, and not struck on himself,” 
Loring reported as his estimate of Russell, to his fellow officers. 
“You’ll find him good company.” 

A movable kitchen rolled up, and officers appeared from various 
directions. Captain Dallas Hope hurried from a conference with 
his colonel. It was the first time the officers of the Westmorland 
Guards had messed together since taking their new position. 

“The new second lieutenant is here,” Loring told Dallas as 
they received their plates. 

“Good!” said Dallas. “The news that the flyers have just 
brought in, makes it likely we will be moved up within the next 
twelve hours. He is just in time.” 

The Westmorland Guard were reserves to support battery X— 
at a point not yet reached by the enemy. 


124 


TRAPPED 


“We are ready to give the Boches a warm reception/’ Ralph 
grinned over his coffee cup. “Oh, here comes Russell.” 

Loring went out cordially to meet Amos, and introduced him to 
the officers they happened to be near. They received him boyishly, 
and heartily. Amos shook hands all around, and was impressed by 
the vigorous good fellowship of the officers. 

After some droll foolery, which occurs even in the face of the 
gravest situations, Loring gave him a plate of food and cup of 
coffee, and conducted him to the Captain. 

“Captain Hope this is Lieutenant Russell,” he said. 

An instant change touched Amos. His tall figure stiffened. 
His smile grew rigid. He responded to the captain’s charming 
greeting with chilled politeness. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

A Subaltern Refuses to IVake Friends with His Captain. 

Captain Dallas Hope was accustomed to making friendly ad¬ 
vances, in the service, and out of it. 

“What’s doing in London?” he began breezingly. 

“Very quiet,” Russell replied laconically. 

“I’m glad you got here just now. You might have missed us if 
you had been a little later. We may receive orders to leave any hour. 
Good trip over?” 

‘Very pleasant, sir.” 

Dallas shot a glance at Russell. He seemed to see nothing 
but his plate. 

The other officers, near, partly because it was the captain, 
partly because it was the new subaltern, stopped talking, to listen. 

“Give us some news. We don’t have any till some fellow like 
you comes from a sure news-center. How is it at the front?” 
Dallas asked confidentially, with real eagerness to hear. 

“The Allies are steadily retreating, sir.” 

Russel was evidently answering questions of a superior officer. 
He was gravely polite. 

In some way he had already emptied his plate. He stalked back 
with it to the “kitchen,” after punctiliously saluting his captain. 

That astonished young man, holding a fork loaded with beans 
half-way to his mouth, faced the suppressed grins of the officers 
near him. 

Hope was saying to himself, “Just his English way, I suppose. 
Gee, but the Briton hit him hard.” 

Hope was the most popular officer in the regiment, and he 
knew everyone who had overheard the exchanges between him and 
Russell was wondering at the new man’s behavior. Dallas’ extreme 


TRAPPED 


125 


good looks that made him charming to women, was equalled by a 
dashing simplicity that made him attractive with the men. He 
rather prided himself on the warm terms that existed between him¬ 
self and the other officers. 

One or two officers finished as quickly as Amos, and were 
excused. Amos followed them to see after “the men he had brought 
with him.” 

“He’s never been to war before. He’s thinking of Mamma, and 
feels frightened when he sees his captain,” ventured the major as he 
rolled a cigarette and watched Amos stride off. 

“It’s new to him, and he thinks that’s the way to treat a super¬ 
ior officer,” explained Loring apologetically. 

“He’s a fool,’’ declared another. 

“From his fear of saying something, I think he is under age, 
and has run off, and he is afraid that if he talks, he will give him¬ 
self away, and be sent back.” 

“Maybe the captain knows his people, and he is embarrassed 
because....” 

“But I don’t’’ Dallas interposed. “I don’t know any Russells.” 

“Possibly you know his family, and Russell is an assumed name.” 

“It is my duty then, to find out what his real name is',” laughed 
Dallas, “unless some of you can do it for me.” 

“Come on then, let’s look him up and make him talk; for we may 
all be dead to-morrow, and we’ll never find out whether he is merely 
a raw recruit or a prince of the blood royal.” 

They found Amos distributing candy and tobacco to the squad 
that had come with him. His face was a big smile; and as the 
officers came up he explained radiantly: 

“I had this on hand and decided to get rid of it before we had 
marching orders.” 

He passed cigars among them and sat down under the trees, 
chuckling in frank admiration of happy-go-lucky Ralph Loring. He 
seemed a constant revelation to the serious—minded boy. For Loring 
joked about everything, even the battle that might begin any minute. 

“Better write our love letters before dark. No lights will be 
allowed in camp to-night!” Loring drew his pen and several post 
cards from his pocket. 

The others followed his example and soon all were busy with 
what might be their last lines to loved ones at home. As Amos looked 
from one to another, some frowning to hide emotion, some suddenly 
and haggardly sad—even Loring serious—he wondered how a man 
with loved ones, would feel under the circumstances. Like a stab he 
realized what it would mean to him if his mother were at home— 
How her anxiety might torture and paralyze him! 

“I have at least been saved that. If I am killed, no one will 
be made miserable for life.” He sighed contentedly. 

Loring, misinterpreting the sigh, tossed him a card, saying gayly: 


126 


TRAPPED 


“Write it all to her! You’ll feel better when its off your mind!’’ 

Another officer proffered him a pen. Russell declined, saying he 
had already wrtten his communication, and pinned it inside his 
breast pocket. 

After finishing their “last lines,” they smoked and talked; each 
man telling how he chanced to enter the army, or the singular cir¬ 
cumstances under which some friend had volunteered. If Russell 
suspected their ruse, he gave no sign. He joined the conversation, 
but never referred to himself. Yet he was absolutely unembarrassed, 
and seemed to thoroughly enjoy all that was said. They could not 
dream that this was one of the happiest moments of his life. The 
germ of good cheer planted in every human heart by God—that had 
been crushed by bereavement, and bruised by disappointment—was, 
like a flower, again breaking through the dark crust of earth. 

He wondered once what they would think, if he should say to 
them that this was his first social afternoon with men his own age, 
and that their friendliness was showing him what it was to be liked. 
He knew, now, why men joined clubs and frequented saloons. 

“The risk of being shot is nothing compared to the pleasure 
I’ve had since joining the army. I am just beginning to live—as a 
man.” 

He thought of his lonely house in London, and the old routine 
of work in the X. Y. Z. office; and knew he had made a mistake, 
after all his forethought, in his selection of a “career.” 

Dinner was to be served before dark, and as they rose to walk 
back to “camp” Amos felt they were all friends. He could not know 
that he was to them merely an acquaintance—and in a sense on 
probation. He had unconsciously set the halo of mystery around him¬ 
self. It added interest to all he said—or did not say, for it piqued in¬ 
terest in what he was going to say—but it left him a little apart. 
Of this, however, he was utterly ignorant. 

‘A nice over-grown boy, with a talent for holding his tongue,” 
Loring murmured, as he passed Hope at the “kitchen.” 

‘A talent not possessed by every member of the Westmorland 
Guards!” Hope responded. 

To the surprise of the officers who had just been talking to 
him, Russell ate his dinner in silence, a queer sternness on his boyish 
face, his eyes on his plate, or furtively turned toward Captain Hope. 

Loring announced that each had written to his sweetheart and 
began poking fun at Dallas. “Have you written your letter? Or was 
it a telegram?” 

Into Russell’s face leaped a kindling flame. He turned ab¬ 
ruptly and involuntarily touched his breast pocket. Yes, his letter 
was there. 

“Was your—communication—to the blonde—or to the brunette? 
quizzed Loring. 

Amos whirled and leveled his astonished gaze on Loring. A 


TRAPPED 


127 


dull rage possessed him. He placed his empty cup on his plate, and 
the plate on the box that served as a sideboard. 

Loring slapped him good-naturedly on the back. “You don’t 
approve, old scout, of the liberty I take in guying the captain.” 

“I don’t understand it,” Russell replied simply. 

For the first time his fellow officers noticed the firmness of the 
second lieutenant’s chin. He rose, excused himself quietly and 
walked away. 

“He thinks you are in bad military form,” smiled Hope, “or that 
I am, for allowing your beastly jokes, Loring, in my superior pres¬ 
ence. Here goes for a military set-up on “How A Captain Should 
Dine With His Officers.” Hope swung off in the same direction 
that Amos had taken. 

He was. determined “to talk it out” with this boy who was such a 
“bally mixer.” If Amos were the son a noble and had run away 
to war, as his reserve, silence, shyness and mystery indicated, Hope 
must sift the thing out; and, if he were under age, induce him to 
return home. “He doesn’t look twenty,” Dallas concluded'. “He cer¬ 
tainly ought to write to his mother. He may be killed in the scrap 
to-morrow.” 

The Captain found Amos sitting with his back against a tree, 
and his eyes in the clouds.If he heard Hope’s approach he gave no 
sign. Yet he did not start when Dallas spoke; only saluted, scram¬ 
bled to his feet, and then seated himself on the root near him. 

Amos declined a smoke, and as Dallas rolled a cigarette, he 
spoke of the forest and the possible protection in the fight, the next 
day, if they were forced back. Russell replied courteously, but as 
if he only half-heard what was said. 

Dallas set his teeth mentally. Getting on good terms with his 
new officer was like taking a stiff bit of Bosch’s trench. Only, he 
perceived, if he were willing to merely salute across the barrier, it 
would not trouble him. But to storm and cross it seemed impossible. 

Hope could not know that while he talked the boy was repeating 
to himself: “I shall not be friends with him! No one shall ever say 
that I accepted his friendship or offered him mine. They must be 
able to say that no friendship existed between us. I have sworn 
to do this thing....” 

“Have you ever been in a skirmish?” asked Captain Hope sud¬ 
denly. 

“No, I have never been in any sort of a battle,” Amos replied 
coldly. 

“Do you think you will be frightened?” asked Dallas kindly. 

Amos flushed hotly. “Are men usually scared?” His tone 
quivered with resentment. 

“Yes, almost always. It is a—right serious thing— to go any¬ 
where—if you know that you may not come back—alive,” Dallas 


128 


TRAPPED 


replied in the same kindly tone. He was thinking “I will break down 
his reserve.” 

“I will not be friends with hm,” Amos swore mentally. 

“Most of us.,” Dallas went on almost tenderly, looking away 
from Russell’s face, “write a letter—home—and pin it in an inside 
pocket, where it may be found—if it needs to be found. You had 
better write your mother this evening?” 

“I have no mother.” But the boy’s voice trembled as he pro¬ 
nounced “Mother.” 

“We shall be pals yet,” thought Hope. He dropped his hand 
on Russell’s shoulder. “Neither have I. It is the greatest loss a 
man can sustain in this life.” 

Amos was shocked. That Hope could thus express himself when 
Margery was his wife! But he felt Hope did not love her, when he 
saw him laughingly bid her good-by. Not as he—Amos— loved! 
The silence that followed was as chill as that which Hope had broken 
with his first speech. 

Dallas seldom abandoned an undertaking until success was his 
own. His sense of responsibility in discovering if Russell were the 
man he claimed to be, and his surprise that his second lientenant 
should be unresponsive, passed into an acknowledgement that he had 
met the first real defeat of his life. “And from a mere lad—hardly 
out of his teens!” he mused, as he rose and walked back to camp. 

“I lied to him,” he thought as he stopped in a little clump of 
trees, and drew out Margery’s telegram. “Losing Margery would 
be the—supreme loss. He is such a cub he wouldn't know what I 
meant—if I had not said the orthodox thing.” 

He read the telegram again, weighing every word, smiling at it 
as if it were something virile. 

“You think a bit of me, little girl, or you would not have made 
time to send this message when you had only an hour in which to 
move bag and baggage for parts unknown.” He was smiling. “You 
like me more than a little. I am not exactly ‘in the crowd.’ This 
was so good of you! God bless you!” 

He shoved the paper into his pocket, and tramped on with a 
sense of exhilaration. No wonder he could be kind to a peevish boy. 
He felt he could love and bless the universe. With the tender warmth 
then surging through his veins he could have shed benevolence upon 
the Boches themselves! 

At dawn the conflict began, and Company C, of the Westmor¬ 
land Guards, was flung into the thick of it. All that day in a mael¬ 
strom of shells, they stayed in the midst of a living hell. At sun¬ 
set there were orders to draw off. 

Late that night Hope sent for Russell, and heartily complimented 
him on his coolness under fire. “I have told the Colonel you are 


TRAPPED 


129 


bully. You will be commended for distinguished bravery,” he con¬ 
cluded. 

The tall young man thanked him very solemnly. A fiery blush 
burned his face as he added, queerly: 

“I shall feel that God has been good to me if I have the opportu¬ 
nity to prove to you—that I am not a coward!” 

“Coward!” exclaimed Dallas, “How could I think that, when I 
called you here to say that you have shown distinguished courage. 
You are as brave....” 

‘Thank you!” cried Amos, impulsively, catching Hope’s hand, 
while his yes met his captain’s steadily. It seemed to Dallas they 
had a triumphant light. “Thank you for those words. If you would 
only tell.... ” 

Like a thing pursued, the boy turned and fled. 

“Of all the odd chaps!” thought Hope. “After this, though, I 
know we shall be friends.” 

However, the next time he met Amos the boy was, if possible, 
more reserved than on the first day they had lunched together. 

Dallas was generous and brave, as well as a popular officer. 
But he recognized that Russell did not wish to be friendly with him. 
Hence he dropped his overtures, and seemed to completely forget the 
boy’s lack of cordiality. 

Life, as the days passed, was becoming very sweet to Amos. He 
was finding, as most men do, sooner or later—generally sooner—that 
there was a great deal worth living for besides the love of a woman. 
He even had doubts about the wisdom of the vow made when the end 
of all things seemed at hand. Was such an oath binding? Sometimes 
he half regretted :ie could not be friends with Captain Hope. When 
this feeling crept upon him, he steeled his heart, and reminded him¬ 
self that, “Only a cad fails to keep an oath. I have sworn. I can not 
retract.” 

It never occurred to the romantic youngster that a vow might be 
melodramatic! He was at the knightly period of his life, he was in 
love—and he was in war. No ray of humor nor discriminating 
common sense illuminated the darkness of his boyish tragedy. 

The Germans with overwhelming numbers steadily pressed back 
the Westmorland Guards. In their retreat from Mons, there 
was fighting nearly all the time except a few hours at night. The 
death toll was terrible on both sides. All personal equations were 
forgotten, except—Amos in the chaos, remembered his oath, and 
watched for an opportunity in which to fulfill it. 


130 


TRAPPED 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Lady Florence Spins a Web. 

Seme days after the departure of Amos Russell, Clarence Holt 
chanced to meet Lady Florence in Trafalgar Square. At least he 
thought it chance, though the lady hailed him from her car, and urged 
him to go home with her to luncheon. 

He accepted with alacrity, and had no sooner taken his seat 
beside her than he inquired the latest news of Margery. 

“Is she ready to return to London, for a dance or two?" 

“You have missed your guess extraordinarily this time," laughed 
the countess. “She is absorbed in her work. She thinks every idle 
man or woman in England should volunteer at once to nurse the 
wounded. She vows that England is hopelessly asleep. From her 
description, the suffering in the hospitals 1 —and en route to hospitals 
—must be terrible." 

“Where is she now?" asked Holt quickly, to fend off unpleasant 
details. He had read enough of that stuff in the paper. 

“Somewhere in France," smiled Lady Florence. 

“Somewhere in France," echoed Clarence Holt. A moment’s 
silence fell. It brought a thought, that was a revelation to Holt; 

“He followed her! Or—did she go because he had volunteered?" 

For the life of him he could not recall which resignation had 
occurred first—that of Russell or Margery. Was it a heart—affair? 
Of course that—if they had gone to be together. Of what standing? 
Were they engaged? Surely not! Yet Russell saw her every day. 
Holt recalled how charming Margery looked one morning when he 
was in Russell’s office and she had entered with the telegrams. 
Yet—Margery had stiffly refused to drop conventionalities with 
him! 

Holt cast a shrewd eye on Lady Florence beside him. How much 
did she know? He would use diplomacy. Perhaps she had known, 
and wanted to get Margery away from Russell, when she consented 
that the girl should go as a nurse. So he must surprise from her 
ladyship any knowledge she may have. 

“Beastly—the way our best men are going," he grumbled. “I 
have lost my assistant, now —Lieutenant Russell—Amos Russell. He 
resigned suddenly—before I had any idea he was thinking ot it— 
and has gone to the front." 

Lady Florence did not turn a hair. Possibly, though that was 
just her pride to keep him from knowing that Margery had been 
hopelessly democratic in her fondness for Amos His genuine inter¬ 
est in Russell stiffened at this suggestion, and he heard himself say¬ 
ing, almost defensively! 

“Amos Russell is a man who is sure to rise. His brains—and 


TRAPPED 


131 


preparation, make it perfectly possible for him to become eventually 
—prime minister. Here he risks his life at the front!" 

Lady Florence sighed slightly. It was for the perfection of the 
souffle', though. Lunch would be delayed, waiting for her and her 
guest—The souffle' might suffer. 

She was fetching Holt home to Lord Dalhousie and Lord Carnes 
—though he did not know it, just yet. There was a plan afoot to 
end the war in which Clarence could help. She had promised her 
brother before setting out, to arrest Holt, if necessary, to bring him 
back to luncheon. She had ordered a menu, including the souffle'; 
that was the end, which justified her present means. She had boldly 
gone to his office for him, but he was not there. She was still “out 
for him" when, by accident she ran across him in the square. 

Besides her brother's war plan she had one of her own, it was 
just as well to talk to him, now and then, about Margery. 

The evening before—the day the Allies retreat began from Mons 
—Lord Dalhousie had arrived as her guest. He came in response 
to a telegram from Lord Carnes begging him to come to London at 
once. To-day, however, he had wakened with gout, which prevented 
his going to call on Mr. Holt. Lord Carnes had arrived with im¬ 
posing bundles of paper under his arm, and was so evidently dis¬ 
appointed that Lord Dalhousie could not visit Holt, that Lady Florence 
had volunteered to bring Mahomet to the mountain. 

Holt, sitting beside her, studied her unobtrusively, and coucluded 
that she was a bit absorbed, but that he could get no “rise" out of her 
about Margery and Amos. 

“I will sit tight, and peg away at this thing, till I discover the 
hang of it," thought Holt. “If she knows, I am going to find it out 
b'fore I leave her house to-day." 

While Lady Florence was spinning her web for the fly,Lord 
Dalhousie was telling Lord Carnes just how gloomy he felt. 

The wanton destruction in Belgium had gone deep with him. 
The stupendous army Germany had hurled into France almost in a 
day, and the retreat of the Allies, appalled him. 

Lord Carnes countered this by a different—and more nervous 
unhappiness. 

“Belgium could have been saved, if they had only—believed!" 
he said. A glow fired his fine old eyes. “It can be stopped now! 
I can prove it to Holt!" he touched his roll of papers. 

“I promise that he shall listen this time," declared Dalhousie 
positively. “With your proofs, which I can substantiate, he will at 
least consider your plan." 

Lord Carnes face brightened. “If he only will! It can save the 
world from a German invasion. The Germans were sweeping every¬ 
thing before them before the war began," he added. “We accepted 


132 


TRAPPED 


their science, and taught their plilosophy, and now we are paying 
the penalty.” 

“We now ridicule and denounce their culture, but to the extent 
that we have accepted it, our own is false. We must expunge it from 
our schools. We need a Savonarola to reform the world.” 

Lord Carnes nodded “Our philosophers and scientists are largely 
responsible for present conditions. To their own satisfaction they 
have proven that the soul is not immortal, leaving man only an animal 
with the highly developed intellect. Were this true the wisest man is 
he who follows the old formula ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for to¬ 
morrow we die!’ ” 

“How then do you say that we are near the millennium ?” 

“‘Progress,”’ replied 1 Lord Carnes, ‘“has always been brought a- 
bout by facts, that seem to contradict the ruling theories of the day. 
When these facts have been investigated, theories had to be changed/ 
The world is on the eve of one of these great changes now. The long 
expected Brother from Asia will come, and the Light shall shine in 
dark places. Plato says ‘We perceive with our souls by means of our 
senses.’ What of this knowledge—a higher knowledge—where the 
soul sees by ether vibrations? When the phenomenon of prevision— 
or as you in Scotland call it, second sight—a latent force in the 
human soul, becomes, in future evolution, a sixth sense—or as Du- 
Prel says, the faculty of far-seeing in time and space....” 

“Well?” 

“When this becomes the possession of all men, will not all men 
believe?” 

“Possibly,” admitted Lord Dalhousie. 

“Certainly,” declared Lord Carnes, triumphantly. “Man’s un¬ 
belief causes him to live blindly. Loving darkness rather than light, 
is chiefly due to his ignorance. A great light is about to shine upon 
the earth. Nostradamus, in his wonderful work, ‘The Centuries' 
predicted the most important events that have occurred in history— 
until the present. Of our time he says ‘We are slowly recovering the 
lost belief in immortality, and preparing for the reign of universal 
peace.’ When the Great Brother comes he will unite all men in a 
brotherhood, and the kingdom of God shall begin.” 

“He has already come,” said Lord Dalhousie, “and the world re¬ 
ceived him not.” 

“He shall come again, and be welcomed with joy,” said Lord 
Carnes. 

“I should like to hope that—you are not mistaken,” replied Lord 
Dalhousie. “Many changes will have to take place, social, moral, 
religious, before mankind is ready to receive a new revelation—no 
matter how high its source. I have thought on this subject, too; 
and things spiritual, to me, just now, appear topsy-turvy. The wicked 


TRAPPED 


133 


flourish like the green bay tree. The best suffer most. What in¬ 
ducement to be good, have we to offer an unbelieving soul?” 

“Your ideas are as distorted, as those of the world,” interrupted 
Lord Carnes. “Your own Bible_” 

“Neither Jesus nor the Apostles promised freedom from pain in 
this life,” interrupted Lord Dalhousie. “This is just my point. To 
the average human, martyrdom does not appeal. The world, taken 
as a whole—not an individual here and there—is getting further from 
Christ’s teachings all the time. Civilization—itself—has collapsed 
in Europe.” 

An exultant light crept into Lord Carnes’ dark eyes. “This 
proves that you still see through a glass darkly. You do not yet 
understand the clarity of God’s plan. “Life gives of its best to all. 
Happiness to the simpler souls. To those who are worthy, renoun - 
elation. To a few who have earned it, Transfiguration. What if 
many of us who love truth, must go without? Is it not renunciation 
that leads to transfiguration? There is but one road to God for 
all to tread; but it is the Path of Bliss.’ As Janarajadasa truly 
says ‘Whoso will offer up all that he is, to a work, though he lose his 
lire therby, yet shall he find it soon, and come again rejoicing, bring¬ 
ing his sheaves with him.’ But the Path of Bliss is by works. If we 
obtain happiness, and live for it alone, the soul stagnates. Its dy¬ 
namic qualities are lost; it retrogrades. If the soul is to go on, she 
must work, and fit herself for the higher life. The law of Karma— 
every man the precise result of his own acts—is inexorable. ‘Life 
seems full of pain at the end of the first stage, but the lesson is clear 
—thou must do without, ‘if thou wouldst reach the second stage. It is 
only by renunciation that life really begins. *The noblest workers 
—those to whom the Earth owes most—have oftenest been the poor, 
the broken-hearted, or those with indomitable wills to succeed in spite 
of obstacles! The great workers leave life but to return again, with 
the inborn technique—we call it talent, sometimes genius—to achieve 
in this incarnation, where in the previous one he only struggled!” ’ 

Lord Dalhousie looked at him in surprise. “You mean that you 
think Galileo may have come again in Sir William Herschel? Sir 
Isaac Newton in Darwin, or Alexander the Great as Caesar, Napoleon, 
or Robert E. Lee—and now perhaps, is waiting somewhere to take 
charge of the troops of the Central Powers, or the Entente? 

“Something very much like that,” laughed Lord Carnes, amused 
at his friend’s bewildered expression. I am not referring to these 
you mention, but to the truth. It may take many, many incarnations 
to get from one stage to another. But the struggle—the best efforts 
to help others'—not what we have done for self, in previous existences 
—carries on to the Higher Life. Such a one is on the high road to 
Transfiguration. ‘Through devotion to human service, one may form 
a personal relationship with one of these Great Ones; which is the 


184 


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most blessed event that can take place in any life, and leads on to a 
spiritual existence filled with power, wisdom, joy.’ ” 

Carnes paused, looking triumphantly at his friend. And such 
is the power of habit that in the joy of discussion, each, for the time 
being, forgot the terrible war, and their mission in London. Lord 
Dalhousie cleared his throat, to dissent, but Lord Carnes was too 
quick for him and continued: 

“It is the greatest happiness—when seeming failure stares you in 
the face—to know the end is not yet; and that you will return better 
equipped to fight the same battle again. To be assured that in time 
and in eternity, as well as in youth, ‘there is no such word as fail.” 
That blindly, or in the light, we are all pressing forward to the ulti¬ 
mate elimination of selfishness and sin—The time will be hastened or 
deferred according to man’s preparedness to receive it—but all will 
eventually come to the great reward. It is sustaining grace to me 
now, to feel that though I do not succeed in stopping this war, that my 
efforts shall not be forgotten, and that in my next incarnation I shall 
receive my reward. That reward may mean the companionship of 
which I spoke—an infinite privilege and constant joy to him who has 
earned it. Ultimately I may even become a Master—and enjoy the in¬ 
expressible bliss, as well as glory, of helping others as I have been 
helped.” 

His vibrant voice and glowing eyes, met—at every point—his 
friend’s increasing coldness—and impatient shrugs of rejection. 

“I am astounded Robert to hear you say such things !”Lord Dal¬ 
housie broke in, “to know that you, of all men, should become so im¬ 
bued with such a—a philosophy—it can’t be called a religion, though 
many of its tenants are exalted. Yet, so were the teachings of Plato 
and others. The future you find so comforting, would be to me the 
blackness of despair. To live only to die—to live to die again—an end¬ 
less chain of horrors! The personal equation gone! I have lost by 
death—as you have not—my best.” His voice grew husky. “My wife— 
so beautiful—so good—so dear! And Juliet—our daughter!” He made 
a motion of inexpressible grief. Then he stumbled on. “To feel that 
these two—had lost their identity—and were living again—as other 
creatures—would be an annihilation of the soul! I feel I profane 
my love for them even to say it! It is unthinkable. Nothing could 
be worse. No hell painted by Dante could approach it_” 

Dalhousie spoke rapidly and with great vehemence, and so en¬ 
grossed were both men that they did not hear the front door open, 
nor even see Lady Florence and Clarence enter the room where they 
sat. 

“Oh, here they are!” gaily cried the countess. One glance told 
her that the two were in the seventh heaven of controversy, and that 
she must bring them to earth with a thump. There must be nothing 
serious, she felt, until Holt and the souffle' had met. 

She trilled into a charming laugh. “They are discussing the 


TRAPPED 


135 


possible effect that the completed tower of Babel might have had on— 
the inclination of the earth’s axis!’’ And she teased her brother with 
her handsome eyes. 

There was no resisting her infectious humor. The men rose and 
smiled as they cordially greeted the head of the X. Y. Z. office. 

* * * * * 

r 

When Mr. Clarence Holt left the house, and entered a cab, his 
face had lost its usual British imperturbability. Acute indecision 
was struggling there with something stronger. Two distinct emotions 
were tugging at his mentality, as he held Lord Carne’s plan suspended 
in the scales. He had utterly forgotten Margery. 

“I am in a position,” he said, “to make myself famous for all 
time—or the laughing stock of the world!” 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

Where She Was. 

Late that afternoon the expected Red Cross party under an 
American surgeon, Dr. Sothron Mason, arrived, bringing with them 
adequate medical supplies. 

But a drizzle of rain set in—not enough to settle the dust, but 
sufficient to make the cold more penetrating. The electric lights 
were still uncertain, the number of wounded brought in even greater 
than the preceding night, and the death rate was larger. 

Soon of ter breakfast the corps major received a telegram or¬ 
dering the unit back to Gras. 

“Back to Gras!” exclaimed Margery. “Why the Allies must be 
retreating.” 

“Possibly,” replied the corps major, “but we must intimate noth¬ 
ing of the kind. We go for better hospital facilities. This can 
readily be believed.” 

At the tiny village of Gras they were met by an eminent French 
army surgeon, Dr. Delcasse—and found no hospital at all. Instead 
they heard the same wail: “We did not dream Germany would 
break her solemn pledge and march through Belgium’—else we would 
be ready here as we are on our other frontiers.” 

Dr. Delcasse, Dr. Mason and the corps major consulted; and 
under their directions the nurses—assisted by a large number of 
citizens, all of whom volunteered—a church and a near by ware¬ 
house, were made ready to receive the wounded that came by train 
that evening. At daylight the blesses were brought in auto-ambul¬ 
ances; and before ten o’clock by vehicles of every kind. It was no 
mere figure of speech to say “the soil of France was drinking the 


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life blood of her bravest sons/’ It was a heart-breaking fact. The 
blood, dripping from the amlbulances, actually turned the road dust 
into scarlet mud. All who breathed were brought from the battle¬ 
field. There were not merely wounded men, but shot-to-pieces- 
mutulations of human beings. Children screamed, women fainted, 
and brave men wept, as they saw the carnage. It was in¬ 
finitely more horrible than anything that Margery had encountered 
up to this time; yet, she now, realized it had been going on since 
the beginning, and would continue until the end of the struggle. 
She found herself saying as a prayer: 

“Forget self, and think of what you can do for them.” 

Dr. Delcasse knew that the nurses could not bear this strain 
long, so he divided them into shifts—with many of the townspeople 
assisting them. 

That the Allies were retreating was no longer a secret—It was 
accepted, but with sublime faith in their army. The French were 
falling back because it was the wise thing to do. But they would 
come again and drive the Germans before them. The lillies of 
France were immortal. 

It was no surprise to Margery, when Dr. Mason—who had re¬ 
tained her as his assistant during much of the ghastly day—told her 
they had received orders to fall back to Reaux, where two good hos¬ 
pitals awaited them. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Margery finds Her Great Moment. 

They found Reaux a quaint, romantic little town, perched high 
upon a terraced mountain side. A huge cleft in the rocks formed 
a great window through which the village looked out over a fruitful 
valley, in the shape of an isosceles triangle. The town lay at the 
sharp apex, while the base rested upon the distant highway, now 
one of the most traveled roads in Europe. 

The railroad, winding along the edge of a low cliff, entered and 
left Reaux by tunnels. Along this track the first houses were built. 
As the hamlet grew it climbed the mountain, always looking across 
the valley toward the Great Highway, and the setting sun—except 
where it turned its back on both, and crawled down, to sprawl over 
the plane. 

In this winter-sheltered niche two landlords had built large 
hotels, that prospered on tourists, who found here an ideal climate. 
One hotel, the Lafayette, was near the station. The other La 
Bellevue stood like a crown above the city, and was reached by zig¬ 
zag, flower-bordered streets. 

When our Red Cross unit reached the station they found both 


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137 


hotels empty of guests, servants and hosts. Waiters and cooks were 
in the army. However, the hotels had been opened as hospitals by 
order of the government. 

“France is proving how excellently she can do things if given 
time,” Dr. Delcasse remarked as he led his staff through the well- 
lighted, thoroughly equipped LaBellevue, and stopped to beam on the 
porcelain-lined operating rooms: 

“Even the slightly wounded can have a cot here, and there will 
be no death chamber!” said Margery. 

“In there is a reception room for those able to creep about,” 
added Elise, one of the French nurses. 

“A larger number of surgeons and nurses is the only need,” Dr. 
Delcasse continued, “and they are promised to-morrow, a dozen 
Americans.” 

Margery was assigned to the operating rooms. Excepting this, 
for the two days following, the routine was much what it had been in 
Belgium—on duty all night, with rests during the day, and a half 
hour for recreation. 

“I hope you will be able to really rest soon,” Dr. Delcasse said 
to Margery, noticing the “weariness*’ shadows beneath her eyes. 
“We will have things running better when the American nurses and 
doctors arrive, to-morrow.” 

“You said, ‘it may be even worse to-morrow/ ” Elise reminded 
Margery in a low voice. 


* * * * * 

Before the dawn of this to-morrow, 

“A deep sound fell like a rising knell.” 

And each hour it became 

“Nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!” 

Sunrise revealed the French in retreat. It was no rout, how¬ 
ever, but a systematic, fighting-all-the-way falling back, by order 
of a general in whom the army had perfect confidence. 

All the nurses gathered on the portico of LaBellevue, and some 
watched the panorama through field glasses. The valley, where the 
day before, boys and men were harvesting, and the highway beyond, 
were now a moving mass of humanity and vehicles. To Margery’s 
untrained eyes the movement suggested a stream of ants chasing each 
other between two points. All seemed confusion. On the distant 
roadway regiments in blue and red, their guns gleaming in the sun, 
were marching in opposite directions. Several batteries of artillery 
galloped furiously along, followed by slow moving covered wagons. 

“I suppose those wagons are carrying food and amunition,” said 
Elise. 

As she spoke lines of swift auto busses rushed past the wagon 
train. 


138 


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“Look at the autos!” gasped Margery as she moved her glasses. 

Automobiles of all sizes and motor cycles beyond counting, whiz¬ 
zed past the busses and each other, at utterly reckless speed. Like 
a fringe along the outer edge of the roadway trudged men, women, 
and children, also going in opposite directions. 

Margery turned her glass to overlook the valley. It was nearer 
and more clearly discerned, but no more easily understood. It was 
filled with troops whose movements were as confusing as the masses 
on the road. Battalions, regiments—maybe whole divisions—were 
marching and counter-marching. Large bodies of cavalry dashed 
about the plane, and finally disappeared over the hills toward the 
firing line. Aids and messengers on horseback rushed rapidly to all 
points of the compass. 

“The infantry men look so exactly alike,” Margery lowered her 
glasses, “I can’t see how a messenger finds the officer to whom he 
is sent.” 

“Or even knows his own men,” added an unfamiliar, soft voice. 
Margery looked up and recognized the speaker as Dixie Preston, one 
of the American Red Cross nurses who had arrived that morning. 
“Look coming into the village,” the girl called. 

Company after company filed into the town below them. 

“They are to hold the railroad till the last minute,” Elise ans¬ 
wered under her breath, “and if forced back, to destroy it before 
retreating.” 

“They are stopping for coffee—and whatever else it is—that 
they are being offered down there.” 

Through her glasses Margery saw the troops were as full of 
valor and elan as if pushing forward victoriously. 

“I know what they are saying down there,” Elise continued in 
Margery’s ear. “ ‘We were not ready and the Germans were; but as 
soon as we are reinforced we will drive the Boches back, and when 
France and England get into shape, we’ll wipe them from the 
earth!’ ” 

The soldiers waved their caps with a gay hurrah! that echoed 
up to the portico group. There was a scramble to kiss the prettiest 
girls who had served them, and they were off. 

Dr. Mason joined the nurses and took a squint through the glas¬ 
ses at the disappearing soldiers. 

“Dr. Delcasse, acting under orders, has sent all patients able to 
stand the journey, by train, south. So the hospitals are comparitive- 
ly empty. Our American nurses and surgeons will make it possible 
for us to rest by relays to-night, as well as to-day.” 

Margery felt he was trying to brace them for bad news. “The 
retreat of the Allies brings us nearer the firing line,” he continued, 
“and we can expect a large number of wounded to-night.” 

Margery shuddered as she met Elise‘s glance. It said so plain¬ 
ly, ‘We know what he means, a repitition of the ghastly scenes 


TRAPPED 


139 


of Gras. Margery turned her face aside and felt a little sick, but 
looked into Dixie Preston’s startled eyes, and parried bravely; 

“We are glad we are here, I am going now to have everything 
ready to receive the wounded.” 

Several other nurses rose too. Dr. Mason looked at his watch. 
“No hurry. We are not expecting them until five o’clock.” 

In the corridor they met Miss Andrews with the mail. 

‘Here’s a letter for you, Miss Keblinger.” 

Margery’s eyes caught the military post mark and she re¬ 
cognized the hurried, scrawled, handwriting of Dallas Hope before 
it was well in her possession. As she walked down the hall sweet 
excitement thrilled her, lightened her feet, shook her hands. With 
difficulty she gouged the letter from its envelope to devour it. 

“Margery—my dear Margery: 

We are ordered to attack tomorrow. There is much 
that is terribly interesting, but I can’t say a word about it. 
After a grilling day I am writing by a mean light, shells 
barking around me. 

But I must tell you, while I can, that I love you. Don’t 
think I have known you too short a while to be sure. These 
awful days make you know yourself as ordinary years could 
not. What a man feels as he faces dteath goes pretty deep. 

As I realize all tomorrow may mean, I know I love you— 
and want you to know it too. Wont you think of me often? 

This is all I ask of you now. 

If I get through alive, andi am not too fearful a speci¬ 
men of Boche’s work, I will ask you the most important ques¬ 
tion a man can ask. Think of this too, little girl, with ali 
your heart, and be ready, to answer me when we next meet. 
Until then, Oh, my dear.... 

Dallas.” 

“When we next meet! And that fervent ‘oh, my dear’ and....” 
“When we next meet!” She pressed the letter to her heart, to 
her cheek, with the movement that women use for what to them is 
more precious than life. She turned, and ran out a side entrance 
into the deserted garden. It was cold, and she shivered. But she 
did not know it. Tears rose in her eyes and welled down her face 
in a scorching flood. He loved her. There need be no doubt about 
this great fact—ever—now. But would she ever see him again? 
She swayed in sudden weakness, sat down, and after a moment’s 
dazed thinking read the letter again. None of the feelings, she 
imagined she would have when love came, claimed her. There was 
awe, and joy, and' deadly fear—'but it was so simple—(because so nat¬ 
ural, and so inevitable. Dallas loved her—and she, why—she just 
belonged to him! She already felt as if she had been his all of her 


140 


TRAPPED 


short life. Instead of debating if she loved him, or any of the 
questions she had dreamed would be part of such a moment, she 
simply knew beyond any doubt. 

“Dallas loves me!” Then came a thought dimming her radiance. 

“Shall we ever meet again? When? Where? Can any one live 
through a war like this?” Oh God, be kind!” 

She went to her room, read the letter for a third time, folded 
It in a chamois bag, and fastened is by a ribbon around her neck. 
Then she remembered the operating room. After seeing that all 
was in readiness for the wounded, she again returned to her own 
room and wrote a few lines to Dallas Hope. 

“I can not answer his question until he asks it,” she thought, 
with pen posed above the paper. But I can and will tell him 
that I glory in the knowledge that he loves me, and that I pray for 
him every hour.” 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

An Alarm Clock Sets the Trap. 

By five o’clock every nurse on duty stood waiting the arrival 
of the wounded, just as they had stood and waited on Margery’s 
first night in Belgium. Hours passed however, and the wounded did 
not come. 

“What does it mean?” Elise, white-lipped, asked of Margery, who 
was standing near her in the hall. 

The tension of listening to the guns became every hour more 
acute. They hoped each explosion would be the last; for then the 
ambulance corps could begin to gather in the fearful harvest. To 
sit through the darkness of the night, staring at each other, as 
shells screamed and exploded, and saying inwardly: “That is the 
last, surely.... ” only to hear another bomb—and then another—was 
ghastly business. All night the firing of cannon, machine guns or 
rifles, continued. 

At midnight Dixie Preston and Margery went out on the portico. 
Here they were still safe from the shells. But bombs had struck the 
town and several houses there were on fire. They found Dr. Mason 
on the veranda watching the flames. 

“A man, several women, and a few children were killed, or badly 
wounded, by the bursting projectiles. Some were brought here for 
treatment,” he told them. “But hadn’t you two better try to sleep?” 
he added kindly. 

They suddenly realized that they were utterly worn out. So 
they went to their rooms to rest, if not to sleep; for at present it 
was not their shift. 

A little later, Margery, lying awake, listened to the cannon 


TRAPPED 


141 


roar, heard an alarm clock ringing in the next room. She could 
not tell whether she had been dozing or not. Fearing that she 
might fall asleep, in spite of the din, and not waken in time to 
go on duty, she roused up and went to the room to borrow the clock. 

(She found Dixie Preston lifting a pale face from her pillow, 
and staring at the alarm clock in her hand. 

“Let me take your place on duty,” Margery begged. “By doing 
something for the wounded here, I may be able to forget those lying 
on the battle field that can’t be reached by the ambulance corps.” 

“Thank you,” murmured Dixie, sinking back on the bed, “I am ill 
with a nervous headache, and it will be the greatest favor. If I can 
sleep, I shall be all right by morning.” 

Margery gave her a sedative, and hurried to Dixie’s post in a 
ward in a remote L of the building. The desperately wounded had 
been place4 there late the previous afternoon. 

The firing continued. Sometimes it sounded very near. Sud¬ 
denly a tremendous detonation from the south, startled Margery. 
It even alarmed the dying man over whom she was bending. The 
building seemed to rock under the vibrations. Other similar ex¬ 
plosions followed, and for a while the cannonading was terrific. 
Then a lull fell, and there were intervals of silence between the re¬ 
ports. 

In these lapses there seemed more than usual noise and passing 
in the corridors and in the rooms above her. Margery wondered if 
the wounded had been snatched from under fire, and were being 
brought into the hospital. It was impossible, however, for her 
to leave her post a moment, to ascertain what the confusion meant. 
Her patients needed constant attention, and one, at least was passing 
into the valley of the shadow. 

It was after six when an American nurse came to relieve Mar¬ 
gery. Her lungs were gasping for fresh air, and she wanted to 
see if anything in the aspect of the town and valley could reveal the 
position of the Allies. She started toward the portico. 

In the hall she met Dr. Mason. He stopped suddenly looking 
at her as if she were a ghost. 

“I thought you went with the others!” he exclaimed. 

“Went where, and with whom?” demanded Margery, astonished. 

He turned his amazed face on her. “Don’t you know that the 
French have retreated beyond Reaux and that the Germans have 
taken this town?” 

Margery stared at him stupidly, shaking her head. 

“You did not know that they have brought up their cannon, and 
that—out there,” he pointed towards the valley, “is now no man’s 
land? Thousands dying there, and nobody can reach them!” 

Margery felt her knees shake, and she sank with a little moan of 
horror on a wooden chair that stood in the corridor. 

Dr. Mason regretted instantly that he had broken the bad news 


142 


TRAPPED 


so abruptly. He tried to switch her mind from it by pressing a per¬ 
sonal question. “Where were you at two o’clock this morning? I 
sent to your room for you. You were not there. I supposed—and 
every one else did—that you had already gone to the Lafayette.” 

“I am sorry,” Margery flushed like a guilty child under his 
level eyes, “but I—broke a rule. I took the place of Dixie Preston, 
who was ill,—and I forgot to report it. I was in ward W from one 
until six. I’m so sorry and hope....” 

“Oh it’s all right with me,” Mason hastened to assure her, “but—” 

“Who is head nurse now?” Margery audaciously insinuated 
by a little upward look, that he was afraid of this august authority. 

He laughed in spite of his evident anxiety. “I am not quite 
shaking in my boots. I don’t think she will shoot us. Miss Andrews 
of the American corps is head nurse. There she is down the corri¬ 
dor. Excuse me, and I will speak to her about it.” 

He overtook Miss Andrews, and drew her out of hearing range 
from Margery, before he spoke. 

“Do you know one of the English nurses was left here during 
the confusion of last night’s retreat?” he began excitedly. 

Miss Andrew’s reputation of being equal to any emergency, had 
sent her overseas. She had no intenton of losing it now. She gave 
herself a moment to think. 

“Which one?” she asked carefully. 

“Miss Keblinger,” Dr. Mason replied. “What are we to do a- 
bout it? You know England is now the German chiefest hate.” He 
reddened as he added hesitatingly, “I have already mentioned to Dr. 
Karl von Westarf that all the French and English surgeons and 
nurses have gone, leaving the hospital in our charge.” 

Miss Andrews made an instant decision. “You did not inform 
Dr. Von Westarf officially; and you thought you were telling the 
truth. It would be unfortunate to give his German efficiency a jar, 
by correcting the first statement we have made to him. He told me 
a number of German nurses have been ordered here to take the 
places of the French and English nurses. It will be easy for them 
to suppose Miss Keblinger an American. She will be in the oper¬ 
ating room with the Americans, when not resting; so the Germans 
need never discover that she is English.” 

“I expect it would spare her unpleasant experiences,” Dr. Mason 
admitted slowly. “It is a bit irregular, but.... I can’t see that it 
makes any vital difference whether she is enrolled as an English 
Red Cross nurse, or an American—who has come to the aid of the 
Allies....” 

“Sure it makes no possible difference!” echoed Miss Andrews. 
As an American we can send her back into France at the first 
opportunity. I see no other way of getting her there. It will pos¬ 
sibly save her many an insult—may be imprisonment.” 

“If—you think best—” he smiled, and waved off responsibility— 


TRAPPED 


143 


we shall let it go with this! If they don’t find it out, the joke will 
be on the Germans. If they do—on us!” He was young, and his 
sense of humor abnormally developed; practical jokes appealed to 
him as immensely funny. Yet he had a queer sensation, that some¬ 
thing in the situation that he did not quite grasp, did make a sinister 
difference. However, his optimism carried the point, that met with 
Miss Andrews' obvious approval. 

“I shall caution the American nurses not to mention it. It was a 
kindness to one of them, Miss Preston, that got Margery into this 
trouble. I like the girl, and am determined to make things pleasant 
for her.” 

Dr. Mason hurried back to Margery. He told her that Miss 
Andrews was a good chap and that their lives were safe, and that the 
head nurse readily understood how Margery chanced to break the rule. 

“For the sake of discipline, however,” he added, “It will be 
just as well for you not to mention that you were left, when the 
other English nurses went.” 

As they walked down the corridor together, Margery promised to 
be most discreet. 

“Do you speak German?” Mason asked suddenly. 

“Like a native. In fact it is my mother tongue; for I was born 
in Berlin.” Margery smiled at the sudden surprise evinced by Dr. 
Mason's face. 

“Fine!” he cried, “Fine! Would you mind speaking German to 
me? I should appreciate it; and I would like a little practice before 
meeting these know-it-all Germans. I should enjoy proving to the 
*pigs' that Americans speak other languages than their own.” 

Margery laughed at his eagerness, declaring she would be charm¬ 
ed to jabber Deutsch with him. 

On the way to the portico Margery stopped in her room. She 
found her dresser drawers and wardrobe open, and empty, and her 
baggage gone. On the table was a scribbled line: 

“Take Miss Keblinger’s baggage to the Lafayette with mine. 
Miss Keblinger is already there. Elise.” 

As she read the note Margery understood what had happened. 
Elise thought, as the others had 1 , that she had gone; but finding her 
things still in her room, had kindly packed them and left this word 
to insure the delivery of Margery’s baggage at the Lafayette. 

Margery reported her loss at once to Miss Andrews, who smiled 
consolingly at her, and assured her, other uniforms would be immed¬ 
iately provided. 

“Go to your room at once, and rest,” Miss Andrews commanded 
kindly, her eyes on the girl’s tired face. 

Margery went obediently, foregoing her survey from the portico. 
The retreat of the Allies, no man’s Land lying so near—yet so out of 
reach—obliterated the trifle of a misplaced outfit from her mind. 
Besides she was too weary to think. She had not slept for over 


144 


TRAPPED 


thirty six hours and had been on duty much of the time. Once in 
her room, she undressed, and in spite of cannon explosions and the 
rattle of the windows, she fell into instant, and exhausted slumber. 
When she awoke a fresh outfit lay on her dresser; her uniform was 
gone—she knew to the laundry. She had slept longer than she had 
intended, and she dressed in desparate haste to get her delayed out¬ 
look from the portico before time to go on duty. She was too pre¬ 
occupied to more than barely notice that she was buttoning on a 
foreign Red Cross uniform. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

The Cup of Cold Water. 

In the early dawn, down the ridges to the left of Reaux and 
towards the great highway, appeared a puff of smoke followed by 
the stupendeous explosion that had startled Margery and the dying 
man in ward W. It was proof that a battery had been placed to the 
south by the French to hold this point while the army moved to an¬ 
other stand. At this time the darkness veiled the effect of the ex¬ 
plosion. 

As Margery came out on the portico she found the German and 
American Red Cross surgeons, who were not on duty, already there, 
gazing through glasses at the field. The curious silence of the little 
group warned Margery. She was partly prepared for the result of 
that cannonading, which the first sweep of her glasses revealed. 

The valley was covered with live, dead men. 

The frightful noise of hours before had somewhat abated, but 
had not ceased. The war furies seemed taking breath before again 
beginning the onslaught. At irregular intervals shells still fell in the 
valley, and none could go to rescue the wounded. 

As Margery looked 1 , questions leapt to her lips, but she did not 
ask them. Her companions were not military experts; their mission 
was mercy, not destruction. They did not understand the movements 
going on under their eyes. 

The girl could only surmise what had happened during the hours 
of night. Or had it happened at sunrise? Had the French been 
raked by enemy machine guns as they fell back across the valley? 
They did not lie as men mowed down while trying to escape. Had 
they been overtaken, and turned and fought, first with shot and then 
with bayonets? This appeared more probable to Margery. The Gray 
green and blue and red uniforms were scattered together over the 
plane, and the bayonets on many guns gleamed in the sun. Had there 
been a cavalry charge? “Yes”, Margery caught her lip between her 


TRAPPED 


146 


teeth, “There must have been a fine, wild rush across the field! Many 
a gallant horse and man had gone down in the encounter. 

As she moved her glass to take in more of the panorama she saw 
that cannon held the center of the stage in the devastation. Trees, 
that the day before skirted the stream and fringed the mountains, 
were gone; or there were branchless trunks, marking where the for¬ 
est had stood; gaunt sentinels telling that war had passed that way. 
Chasms torn in the hillsides by shell explosions, and gaping holes 
ploughed in the fields, told their story of the giant struggle. 

Not these evidences of a hard fought battle, however, turned 
Margery’s blood chill in her vens. She put both hands to the shak¬ 
ing glass as it brought the valley of horror closer. It was not whether 
the fearfulness had occurred in the night or morning, whether the 
fallen went down as they were pressed back inch by inch, or in a 
sweeping forward charge, that Margery now considered. It was 
their lying there so still that counted. This stillness clutched the 
girl’s throat. Some prone upon the back, the stone-white face star¬ 
ing into nothingness. But a thousand millions times more harrow¬ 
ing to see, was the despairing movements of those who had fallen— 
and lived. It was man’s inhumanity to man that made her drop 
the glass with a gasp. 

How long had those wounded been lying there? An hour—two 
hours—ten hours? Possibly. Many slowly dying, or waiting to be 
suddenly killed by the next shell—or the one after—or the one 
after that? Not by shell, at all perhaps. They might be trampled 
in “the charge” to-day—or to-night. 

Margery knew one thing. Reaux was. a stronghold for the 
Allies as well as the Central Powers, and it must be held. Evi¬ 
dently the command “Continue firing until the guns of the 
enemy are silenced” had been issued. As long as one side “con¬ 
tinued” the other could not stop. Between the opposing cannon lay 
only men, the cheapest of all war material. Smashed and dying less 
than cheap—they were now not only useless—(but an expense! 

“Couldn’t they give us one hour to gather in the wounded?” 
heaved from Margery’s heart in a faint whisper. 

“It would at least leave the field clear for the next living part of 
the war machine to charge to death,” answered a nurse grimly. 

“What,” muttered Dr. Mason, as of speaking to himself, “must 
be the thoughts of those wounded Germans, French, Austrians in 
that vortex of—hell!” 

A momentary lull in the barking of the war dogs brought a 
ghastly answer to the Red Cross group. 

A faint cry rising from every part of No-Man’s-Land: 

“Water! Water! For the love of God, water!” 

The nurses turned away their faces; Dixie Preston gave a queer 
strangled sob. Dr. Mason and the newly arrived 1 surgeons swore 


146 


TRAPPED 


under their breath. They knew the terrible thirst caused by the 
loss of blood. 

And niobody could go to their aid! 

“We must do something! We must!” Dixie sobbed out. 

“Let’s send a petition to both commanders, to stop firing until we 
bring in the wounded,” suggested Margery, in a strained voice. 

Dr. Mason shook his head. “It’s just a waste of paper,” he said 
“but you can do it if you want to.” 

This was done. After time for the petition to reach the com¬ 
manders the group hung on the portico, breathless, waiting. 

The firing continued. The petition had proved useless. 

For hours the Red Cross group clung to their task of watching 
the wounded in the valley through their glasses. In some curious 
way they felt they thus were not leaving them to die alone. By 
harrowing their nerves they were somehow, sharing their torture. 
To go into the hospital to read, or chatter, seemed heartless. To 
remain and watch, was the only possible outlet for their sympathies. 

“If we could only help them!” they wailed in their hearts; then 
to each other, “if we only had our police dogs.” 

But they made a feint at cheering remarks for each others’ sake. 

“When the shelling stops, we can find them in the dark. We 
know exactly where every wounded man lies.” 

“If the firing stops only an hour before sunset we could bring 
them all in before dark.” 

“Do you see that young fellow—to the right of that tree trunk,” 
Dr. Mason pointed out. “Seems wounded in one leg, but he’s trying 
to get out of the range of the fire.” 

All the glasses were instantly centered upon the man. He was 
in the uniform of France, and wes crawling slowly toward the pro¬ 
tection of the giant oak trunk. As he wormed on, he came near to 
a figure in gray-green that lay inert, except for a queer movement 
now and then. The watchers on the hill saw the Frenchman touch 
the figure, saw the man turn and shake his head, pointing with one 
hand to his feet. The other hand pressed his chest. The French 
boy drew a flask from his pocket, drank and handed it to the man. 
The man hesitated, then raised the flask to his lips. He returned 
the flask with a nod of gratitude. A shell dropped and exploded 
not far away; the boy caught the gray green figure and slowly drag¬ 
ged him to safety beside the tree. Again he offered the man the 
flask. 

Revived apparently, the German got a bandage from his pocket, 
and motioned to the boy to cut away his trousers leg. The hospi¬ 
tal group watched breathlessly, as the Frenchman deftly bound the 
limb, to stop the bleeding. Then they saw the boy, under the Ger¬ 
man’s directions bind both the wounded feet. 

“The man’s wound in his chest prevents his leaning forward,” 
observed Dr. Mason. 


TRAPPED 


147 


The shelling increased in violence. The Frenchman drew the 
German closer to the oak stump. The man’s head rested weakly 
against the boy’s shoulder as they waited. 

“You see,” cried Dixie Preston, “they don’t hate each other! It 
was the Emporers who brought on this war.” 

The other Americans nodded agreement. Margery looked sly¬ 
ly at the Germans. They were silent. Perhaps in their hearts they 
thought the same, but they also thought it would be disloyal to ex¬ 
press such sentiments. She was sure, however, that she saw tears 
in their eyes. 

Silence fell again on the Red Cross unit. 

Suddenly Margery shrieked: 

“The cavalry is going to charge across the valley!” 

The watchers rushed from the gallery. 

***** 

The day wore on; the firing lessened, but not enough to permit 
a sortie to bring in the wounded. 

The watchers drifted again to the post of outlook. There was 
nothing else to do. The wounded still lay before them in the valley 
—the newly wounded, those of the early morning, and of the pre¬ 
vious night. There they lay hour following hour. 

“They are watching the sky and hoping they can be taken 
from the field at dark,” thought Margery, “hundreds and thousands 
of them! Each the whole of some woman’s heart!” 

“Surely the firing will stop to-night!” cried Dixie distractedly. 

Night came and the moon rose, but the firing did not stop. 
The cavalry and infantry had done their work, but the order from 
“Somewhere” to continue “firing,” must be obeyed. Intervals, how¬ 
ever, between explosions grew longer, and again the watchers heard 
that agonizing cry from the valley; 

“Water! Water! Water! Come and get us!” 

“Don’t let us lie here and die! We came to die, not to lie here 
and rot! Water!” 

Prayers, curses, ravings, rose, but above all that cry: 

“Water! Water!” 

“I can’t stand this any longer!” Dr. Mason broke out, springing 
to his feet. If anyone will carry a Red Cross flag and light, I’ll 
take water down there, since we can’t bring them in.” 

All of the group leapt to their feet ready to volunteer. 

The girls begged to join the party. 

“We can carry flags and lights and give hypodermics to those 
suffering,” urged Dixie. 

“No,” Dr. Mason decided preemptorily, “the risk is too great. 
You can't possibly go.” 

The Red Cross party was quickly ready and the nurses stood at 


148 


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the hospital door and watched the ambulance roll down the zig-zag 
street. Then the women returned to the portico to watch for the 
appearance on the field of the Red Cross flag and light. 

The nurses were adjusting their elbows on the railing to steady 
their glasses for clear gazing, when they were started by the beauty 
of the “starlights” that suddenly filled the heavens. They were sent 
up by the Germans from some hidden spot. They circled upward, 
floated in the air, lighting the sky with a weird white glow, and the 
field as vividly as day. Then all was dark again. The light would 
help the Red Cross workers immensely, if the sharpshooters respect¬ 
ed their flag. The temporary light of course could not lesson the 
danger from the cannon fire, which was booming at irregular in¬ 
tervals. The “starlight” would have been a joy to Margery if she 
had not known its object. If the French attempted a retreat the 
glow would reveal it. Then there would be more men dead and 
wounded! 

“Believe me! This war is getting on my nerves!” gasped Dixie. 
“I had no idea such terrible things as that could happen.” She nod¬ 
ded towards the Valley of Horrors. 

“To be killed or wounded for love of country is what every sold¬ 
ier must expect;” said Margery, “but this! It has been reserved for 
twentieth century savagery to make a new hell out of war.” 

Dixie started. It was queer to hear such violent words from 
the composed English girl. 

“This is not a humanity war,” observed one of the men, who had 
not been allowed to accompany the rescue party. 

“The cup of cold water is denied even the dying,” Dixie’s voice 
was shaky with tears. 

“This is going on for two hundred miles!” cried Margery in 
anguish. In her heart she prayed for Dallas. 

“O God, keep him safe! Keep him out of this!” 

Then she broke out passionately. “There should be an interna¬ 
tional law compelling armies to declare a truce every night, in order 
to bring in the wounded and the dead.” 

“While men are mere beasts and resort to brute strength—or 
worse—machine strength, to settle disputes, such a law would be of 
no practical value.” It was the man member of the group, an Ameri¬ 
can, Margery knew from his accent. He dropped his voice for Mar¬ 
gery’s ears, and not the German nurses. “How would you enforce 
such a law? England is in this thing now to enforce the rights of 
Belgium, and all humanity. But just yet she isn’t enforcing very 
much that is humantarian, is she? iSome job to enforce humanitarian 
laws, let me tell you!” 

The Red Cross flag and light appeared on the field. They saw 
it moving from group to group. 

“They might even try to bring some of the wounded back,” cried 


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149 


Margery suddenly. “I am going to see that my ward is perfectly 
ready/' 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Margery’s Red Cross Uniform Leads Her To A Prince 

“Oh Miss Keblinger!” Miss Andrews called softly as Margery 
hurried down the corridor past the office door. 

Margery came quickly to the desk where Miss Andrews was 
seated. Miss Andrews had a package of printed slips in her hand. 
She took out one and handed it to Margery. 

“Fill that out please,” she said, replacing the slips in a numbered 
pigeon hole. She straightened her desk in exasperating haste as she 
talked. “Fraulein Schmidt may arrive at any moment and be in¬ 
stalled as my successor. Of course all must be ship-shape—But these 
Germans are too darn—er—everlasting—particular! Dr. Von West- 
arf was here this morning and left those cards to be filled out.” 

The card was merely a printed form to be filled by stating name 
and age, where born, where trained, and number of years in service. 
Margery sat down at a table to fill it out. 

Miss Andrews continued her irritated comments. 

“The Germans are already acting as if they expected to stay 
here until forever and the day after! They have had possession 
twelve hourse and they are sending convelascents to LaBellevue to 
recuperate. They must have known all about Reaux before the war 
began, for this is an ideal spot in which to get well. Another illustra¬ 
tion of German efficiency, I suppose.” 

Margery handed her the card. As she read it Miss Andrew’s face 
face cleared. She was actually smiling as she filed it. 

“I find,” she began graciously, “that I shall be able to give you 
nothing but German Red Cross uniforms. Do you object to wearing 
them?” 

There was a pause. A strange sense of obscure but depressing 
gloom came over Margery. The dreadful ordeal of the past two days, 
however, had taught her new strength, or callousness. She straight¬ 
ened quickly and tried to smile. 

“No-o, I—I suppose not. The Red Cross uniform is almost the 
only thing in Germany that I do not object to. The members of 
their ambulance corps have gone down there now, to our wounded. 
They will help to bring them in, when the firing ceases. I—I..” 
She was silent for a moment. It was evident that she disliked the 
idea, yet hesitated about being disagreeable regarding a thing that 
could not be avoided. “Of course, they were not responsible for 
my things being lost. Still..” another slight pause. ‘Do you think 


150 


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the—the uniform will make—much difference, since—since none 
other is obtainable?” 

“None whatever,” declared Miss Andrews quickly. “And since 
we are within their lines, I see no reason for letting them know that 
you’d rather not wear their uniform.” 

“Since I must wear it, I shall certainly not make them feel 
uncomfortable,” agreed the girl. 

“Better never mention it,” coutioned Miss Andrews. “I’ll speak 
to the fraulin about your loss” She turned briskly to her desk and 
took out a letter. “I am going to tell you something nice that Dr. 
Mason did for you,” she continued, with an air of intimacy. “This 
letter is a request from Dr. Von Westarf for a list of my nurses 
and their abilities, so that he could know in what order to call them 
to special duty. I put down the names of four German nurses first, 
because they have had much more experience than any others here, 
and your name. When Dr. Mason, signed' it, however, he put a star be¬ 
side your name—and mine,” Miss Andrews, slurred this over mod¬ 
estly. “In a foot note he wrote 4 A. No 1.’ 

“He smiled at me as he handed the list back, and said ‘That will 
keep you at the head of things, and Miss Keblinger in the operating 
room; which is the best thing possible for the hospital and the wound¬ 
ed.’ That list went this morning to Dr. Von Westarf.” 

The blood flowed warmly into Margery’s face. It was something 
nice to hear! She had learned already how chary surgeons were of 
praising a nurse. Something deep in her heart stirred. It was more 
than a compliment; it meant she was really being of use. 

Sitting there with pen in hand, her thoughts went back to Lon¬ 
don and Lady Florence. She had not written for days, and she felt 
an impulse to pour out her thoughts, to say that her coming to the 
front was beginning to mean something to the mangled who were 
thrown her way. But she checked herself. All mail was censored. 
She wrote a short note in German merely stating that she was well, 
and that the town was practically quiet except for the noise made 
by the artillery. She added the briefest word of the horrors of the 
preceeding forty-eight hours. 

She had just slipped the open envelope into the mail box eut- 
side the entrance of the hospital, when an auto whizzed up. A mem¬ 
ber of the ambulance corps hurried in. 

“Come with me to the office, Miss Keblinger?” he said excitedly. 

Miss Andrews was still at her desk as Margery and the chauffeur 
entered. He closed the door quickly. 

“A fearful thing has happened,” he announced to Miss Andrews. 
“Dr. Mason and three of the Red Cross party were struck by a shell 
that exploded above their ambulance as they were leaving the valley. 
Dr. Mason’s hurt may be fatal. He and the others were carried to 


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161 


the Lafayette, and Dr. von Westarf wants you and Frauline Keb- 
linger to come at once.” 

Miss Andrews closed and locked her desk and rang for a nurse. 

Dixie Preston answered. Miss Andrews handed her the key. 

“Take charge here until Fraulein Rachel Schmidt arrives,/ she 
ordered. 

When Miss Andrews and Margery reached the Lafayette they 
found Dr. Mason still unconscious, and Dr. von Westarf ready to 
operate on him. He was waiting for the nurses. He informed them 
that Dr. Mason’s recommendation of them presupposed that he would 
prefer them as his nurses. 

As the operation progressed Margery found herself admiring the 
skill and rapidity of the German surgeon. She did not know until 
afterwards that he was also observing her swift eye and hand. 

After the operation Dr. Mason did not regain consciousness, but 
his breathing was relieved, which lent a faint hope for his recovery. 
It seemed a grim bit of irony that as he was carried to his apartments 
and Miss Andrews put in charge, the firing should; cease. A few min¬ 
utes later the first load of wounded was brought in by the ambulance 
corps. 

Dr. von Westarf gave orders for the severely wounded to be 
brought to the Lafayette, and he asked Fraulein Margarethe, as he 
called her, to remain and assist him in the operating room. Through¬ 
out the remainder of the night all who had a chance for recovery 
were operated upon in quick succession. Margery found that with 
the Germans as with the Allies, those who were beyond hope, waited 
until those who might live received attention. She was also sur¬ 
prised to find that the Germans and Austrians bore suffering as well 
as tne French and the English. She decided that all well-fed ani¬ 
mals fight bravely, if compelled to fight. 

When morning came Dr. von Westarf and Margery were both 
worn out. He ordered her and several other nurses, who had served 
all night, to go to bed until lunch time. To insure rest he sent them 
in his motor to LaBellevue. Fraulein Rachel Schmidt, who had ar¬ 
rived to be head nurse at LaBellevue, was dispatched! with them. The 
nurses were too weary to talk as they swept up to the hospital, but 
Margery’s occasional explanatory remarks to the strangers were in 
such perfect German that it did not occur to any of them that Frau¬ 
lein Margarethe was English. 

At noon Margery received an order to report at once in the 
private office of Fraulein Schmidt. The girl found her sitting at 
Miss Andrews’ desk pressing her hands nervously together. 

“Fraulin K^blinger,” she stopped as if out of breath—“I have 
terribly bad news.” 

A sick appprehension swept Margery. Was Dallas Hope dead. 


152 


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Or was Lady Florence ill? For a moment the girl was as agitated 
as the Fraulein. 

“Prince....” Fraulin paused and corrected herself, “or, as he 
is now called, and you must address him—Col. Reintz, has been des¬ 
perately wounded.” 

She paused again to give the girl time to appreciate the dreadful 
thing she was telling. A sharp reaction shook Margery, relief that 
made her nearly swoon. Then the tide of life rushed back in ex- 
ultance. She could have laughed in the drawn face of Fraulein 
Rachel. Poof! A mere German Prince—when it might have been 
Dallas! She turned slightly to conceal what was really struggling in 
her face. Fraulein’s trembling hand lifted a list from the desk. “By 
the recommendation of the American physican Dr. Mason, and 
through the preference of Dr. Karl von Westarf...." 

“Why this intense solemnity?” thought Margery, trying to 
straighten the up-curling corners of her mouth. 

“.... You have been selected to assist in the operation—though 
you will have really very little to do, as fine surgeons and myself—” 
there was a deliciously egotistic pause here..“will be present. You 
are also one of four detailed to nurse the—'Colonel Reintz. This 
is a very great honor for so young a girl, and I hope you will serve 
him faithfully.” 

“Why certainly I shall,” declared Margery, half-indignantly. “I 
do my best for all my patients.” 

“Yes, yes, I know you do,” Fraulein hastily assured her. “But 
you have never before had a patient like this—who is of very high 
rank. We must only call him by his military title in order to keep 
his name from the newspapers. The world must not know he is 
wounded. Colonel Reintz is partial to pretty faces, and I am think¬ 
ing this is one reason why you were selected.” 

Margery felt the blood flare into her face at this speech. She 
resented it, though she knew it was intended to be complimentary. 
She had developed a fine pride in her work, and was shedding the 
sort of vanity that made such doll-baby flattery palatable. She felt 
a bit of shock, too, at not feeling pleased at what would have de¬ 
lighted her such a little while before. But she kept back her irri¬ 
tation from her superior. She felt already that Fraulein was thor¬ 
oughly trained, and had, under her spotless uniform, a kind heart. 

“Fraulein Elsa, who is also on the case, is preparing the room 
to receive Colonel Reintz after the operation. You may be on duty 
part of the night.... ” 

“My entire nursing outfit was lost in the confusion—’’Margery 
stopped, not knowing how much Miss Andrews had mentioned. 

“So Miss Andrews has reported,” Fraulein added. “Uniforms 
have already been ordered for you.” The head nurse stepped to a 
closet and from one of the shelves selected a beautifully finished 


TRAPPED 


153 


nurses’ case, opened it and examined it carefully. She slipped a sick 
chart in it, snapped it together and handed it to Margery. 

“I think you will find everything you need here. Take it to No. 
18, and in twenty minutes meet me in the hall near 43, where the pr.. 
Colonel Reintz is now. While we are preparing for the operation 
you must talk to him cheerfully, not allowing him to suspect how 
ill he is—nor to speak.” 

Margery walked toward No. 18 wondering what she could talk 
about. “It seems a thousand years,” she thought “since I did any¬ 
thing but watch battle fields or help in the sickening odors of an 
operating room.” 

She met Fraulein Rachel near No. 43 and touched her arm. 
“It’s awfully stupid, but I can’t think of anything to talk about—but 
war and terrible happenings.” 

“Tell him the good news from the front,” cried Fraulein, “that 
we are within twenty-five miles of Paris, and the enemy steadily re¬ 
treating.” 

Margery’s knees grew weak. If Fraulein Schmidt had been less 
excited she would have seen how suddenly white the girl turned. 

“You can also tell him,” Fraulein beamed, “that his gallant 
charge was not in vain. The papers are ringing with his daring 
and his part in driving back the enemy. And of course... .’’and the 
Fraulein paused with her hand on the knob long enough to add— 
“praise the Kaiser.” 

Fortunately—or unfortunately—the light was behind Margery, 
and her face, and its swift anger was lost in the shadow. 

“But I can’t_” she protested tensely. 

“Don’t let him talk at all,” interrupted Fraulein thinking Mar¬ 
gery was frightened before the thought of her patient’s exalted rank. 
She opened the door of No. 43 softly, and pushed Margery in before 
her. 

“It really does not matter what you say, so you say it charming¬ 
ly,” she whispered as they entered the darkened room. 

“Here is the nurse,” said Dr. von Westarf cheerily, “who is to 
tell you how proud she is of you for making the French scamper. 
You are not to protest. If you do....’’ the doctor chuckled, “I’ll have 
your commission taken from you.” 

With a sign to Fraulein Rachel, Dr. von Westarf left the room 
and she followed him. 

As the darkness brightened to the girl, she saw Colonel Reintz’s 
eyes resting on her approvingly, and she flushed under the look. 
Accustomed to the gloom he had quickly seen the difference between 
Margery’s delicate face above her fresh uniform, and the rugged 
yellow features of Fraulein Schmidt. He was about to speak when 
the girl held up a perfectly shaped hand, placing a finger at her lips. 
From force of habit she felt for his pulse at his wrist. 

“This is once that you must be silent and listen to a foolish girl. 


154 


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Ah! A fine brave pulse! Obey orders, and in a little while you will 
be giving them again at the front.’’ She smiled gaily at him. There 
was no trouble at all in talking to him. He was a handsome young 
fellow, with big blue eyes, and his pink, fever-flushed cheeks looked 
as delicate as a girl’s. He was about to answer but she broke in! 

“I’ve heard all about it! You were a bad boy to risk your life 
—to save the day. The German and Austrian papers are ringing 
with your gallantry.” 

Colonel Reintz’s eyes widened in surprised amusement, as if he 
were listening to a naive child. Margery did not dream that she 
was speaking to him as no nurse had ever before dared to talk. 

“You are under a very strict general” she went on, with an 
English frank disregard of ceremony. “Silence is the order. When 
you are well, though, you can punish us all for our audacity.” 

Here a white porcelain table was rolled in, and the prince-col¬ 
onel placed upon it, and gently rolled to the operating room. Fraulein 
Rachel and Dr. von Westarf preceding and Margery following. 

In No. 18 Elsa and the other nurses were counting the hot water 
bags as they placed them in the bed, opening windows and starting 
the electric fan to fill the room with perfectly fresh air. Margery 
saw them as she passed. She concluded from all the fuss and cere¬ 
mony that the patient must be of the blood royal at least. 

As she walked behind the rolling table her mind flew back to 
the dreadful news that Fraulein Rachel had hurled at her as she had 
entered the prince-colonel’s room. The Germans were twenty-five 
miles from Paris! This was the first moment her mind had been free 
enough to really think what this meant. Were the Germans going to 
win? This probability had never before stared her in the face. 

One desperate fear pushed up above all others. 

Where in the line of retreat was Dallas Hope? Had her locket 
proved a true amulet, or was he already like those.... 

The doors of the operating room swung open before the little 
processional. Her prayer welled up in thought rather than words. 

“Take care of him out there! As I take care of this one here; 
0! God, take care of him!’’ 


CHAPTER XL. 

Paris Threatened. 

On September 6th, 1914, the wires of the world carried the news 
that the Germans were less than twenty miles from Paris. 

“The cannonading can now be heard when the wind is in the 
right direction. If they bring up their big guns, shells will be falling 
in the suburbs of Paris to-morrow. Three days ago the government 


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155 


was removed to Bordeaux. The American embassy is the only for¬ 
eign legation that is left in the city.” 

'Sleepy England, giant, unemotional London, awoke. 

If Paris were given up in order to be saved, as Brussels had 
been, it would only be a question of days until the enemy would look 
across the channel at the chalk cliffs, as Caesar and Napoleon had 
done. Could the navy then, hold back the Teutons? 

“Certainly,” everybody declared, confidently—with secret mis¬ 
givings. “Didn’t Napoleon say “There are forty good ways of get¬ 
ting into England, but not one good way of getting out? The Big 
Ditch is still our friend.” 

Yet everybody knew, too, that under the shelter of their 16 inch 
guns, the German navy could come out of Kiel. 

What would happen then? 

They did not doubt the English navy—but—Chance. The battle 
was not always to the strong. Unexpected, never-happened-before 
events had been occurring ever since Germany had broken past the 
Liege guns. Many who jerred at the possibility of England’s isle 
ever being in danger, turned cold about the heart as that “Twenty- 
five miles from Paris” flashed through the world. England was now 
the Teuton’s “only hate.” What Belgium had suffered was as noth¬ 
ing to what England might expect. 

Then the new dangers, air-ship, and submarines, Zeppelins and 
Taubes, could cross the Big Ditch at night unseen. The German sub¬ 
marines was a terror more energetic than oxygen. In ten minutes it 
could sink a dreadnaught that required three years and 2,000,000 
pounds to build. 

Here the tide of talk would veer back. Of course the channel 
could be protected. The government's confession of unpreparedness 
only referred to the army and munitions. German submarines!— 
Pooh! England had submarines, too. The channel could be mined. 
Over-head air-crafts could fly in flocks, if necessary, to protect Eng¬ 
land’s coast. Really, however, none of this would be needed, for the 
English navy was the strongest in the world. It was always ready. 

“Yes,” admitted others wisely, “ready to furnish an imposing 
demonstration before Atlantic City, Valparaiso, or Tokio. To de¬ 
fend London, however, and the entire coast of the British Isles a- 
gainst a powerful fleet, no further away than Calais, demanded a 
different sort of readiness. What chance had big vessels against the 
submarines. Besides, it required practice to use air-crafts and sub¬ 
marines successfully. Have our sailors and soldiers been trained?” 

This last was an ominous question. 

A few gloomily quoted foreign divines who claimed to under¬ 
stand the Bible prophecies, and all mysteries. These declared this 
war the beginning of the Battle of Armagedden, in which all nations 
should fall, and after the Time of Tribulation, the “Republic of 
Europe should be set up.” Of this England would be only a part. 


156 


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These croakers were usually abruptly silenced. Englishmen might 
fight Germans on English soil, but it would be a bad day for the 
Teutons when they landed. Here the question would swing back to 
the first, again: 

“If Paris were taken, when and where would the Germans land 
on British soil?” 

The air thrilled with rumors that started nowhere, but were 
eagerly listened to and believed. Anything could happen, because 
nearly everything had already happened. Phlegmatic London throb¬ 
bed to its center. 

“What could be done?” was asked everywhere. 

Instead of an answer, like a shot came the wail: “If England 
had only been ready!” 


CHAPTER XLI. 

Clarence Holt Makes a Decision. 

When the fall of Paris seemed not a question of days but of 
hours, Lord Dalhousie again interviewed Mr. Clarence Holt of the 
X. Y. and Z. office. He was there at the frantic insistence of Lord 
Carnes. 

“I had forgotten!” Holt exclaimed. 

“I would have forgotten him too, if he had let me,” Lord Dal¬ 
housie admitted inwardly and grimly. 

“Since everything else has failed,” he said aloud and impressive¬ 
ly, “it can do no harm to try Lord Carnes’ plan for a few days. He 
has given me some remarkable proofs that he knows what he is talk¬ 
ing about. And,” hesitatingly, “I believe your refusal will really 
kill him. He feels personally responsible for every man who is shot 
and for every inch of territory gained by the enemy.” 

Mr. Clarence Holt was also feeling enough responsibility to be 
too uncomfortable to sit still. He walked the floor while he listened 
to Lord Dalhousie. The smug flesh had been cut from his cheeks. 
Fine lines between his eyes, and a new eagerness made him graver, 
but manlier than when he smirked at Margery at Lady Florence’s 
dinner. Lord Dalhousie felt the change, as his eyes followed the 
younger man in his nervous circuit back and forth. 

“Lord Carnes’ constant cry,” Dalhousie continued, “is that Ger¬ 
many must be pushed within her own frontiers. 

“He insists,” Lord Dalhousie continued, “that Germany will 
never consent to peace till she sees that she can not conquer the 
Allies.” 

Mr. Holt stopped in his tramp. “Does he still insist that the 
German Empire shall not be broken up, when conquered?” 

“That’s about his position. He has big democratic ideals. A 


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157 


free Europe is his pet theory.” But we are wasting time, dis¬ 
cussing peace terms, when the enemy is at the gates of Paris !” Lord 
Dalhousie rose and took his hat. “If you are going to give Robert 
a chance—do it now! He says he must be in Paris this afternoon. 
His train leaves for Dover in less than an hour.” 

There was a pause. Without a word Clarence Holt suddenly 
turned to his desk and began filling out a paper. 

The significance of the action was evident. Lord Dalhousie 
stepped across the room to the telephone and called Lord Carnes. 

Holt finished, signed, sealed the paper, affixed the ribbon, and 
directed it to the “War Department of France.” 

“George Harmon and Richard Ellis will have to sign this too.” 

Lord Dalhousie replaced the receiver. “I will see to that, thank 
you. I was speaking to Lord Carnes. I told him you were making 
out his papers, and he said “Thank God! Paris will be saved!” 

“We shall see—what we shall see,” remarkel Holt dryly. 

“We shall see very shortly,” said Lord Dalhousie, as he opened 
the door. “I told Robert I would meet him at the station with the 
paper.” 

The door closed abruptly. Holt flushed. Probably he was play¬ 
ing the fool. 

“It was a desperate case,” he told himself, drumming the table 
with his fingers, “and I have taken a desperate chance to save Paris, 
England—maybe the world.” 

London was agitated, but Paris was in a delirium. Vehicles 
of every kind dashed wildly in all directions, and the crowds throng¬ 
ing the streets hurried with the same recklessness. Everybody seem¬ 
ed intent on getting out of the French capital, or finding in the city 
a place that offered safety, if shell, taubes, Zeppelins, rained hell 
on the world-famed boulevards. 

When Lord Carnes stepped off the train into this frenzy, the 
Germans were only seventeen miles from Paris. 


CHAPTER XLII. . 

Margery Hears a Discussion. 

When Margery entered Colonel Reintz’s room the next morning 
she found him better than she could have expected. His injury, a 
lacaration of the thigh, was serious, and he had not been found un¬ 
til several hours after he was wounded. But as the girl greeted him 
and glanced over the chart, she knew that if .tetanus did not set in, 
all would be well with him. 

He smiled a welcome, while she took his pulse; and she smiled 
back. 


158 


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“You are much better,” she told him, “and I must prove myself 
as good a nurse as Fraulein Rachel has been, or they will not let me 
come again/’ 

“But indeed, no,” he said quickly, “I’d like you to stay all the 
time.’ 

“Only one soldier can claim that,” her heart sung to herself, as 
she laid the wrist she held, gently on the coverlid. 

She put a glass to his lips, and hated herself because she blushed. 
He could not know the blush was for Dallas. As she took the cup 
she checked his intention to speak. 

“If you go to sleep now, when you wake up you may talk a little.” 

For a moment his blue eyes danced defiantly. Then he obed¬ 
iently closed them? But he peeped at Margery through his lashes 
as she made entries on the chart, and took her seat near the open win¬ 
dow. 

“She is very beautiful,” he thought as he watched her. “Her 
portrait should be beside those in the Munich gallery.” 

A murmur of voices from the garden below droned in his drowsy 
ears. In a moment Margery knew from his breathing that he was as¬ 
leep. 

The girl too heard the voices, but she was too full of the sense 
of loving and being loved, to heed. She leaned her head against the 
window facing in order to inhale the fresh air, for the day seemed 
warm, after the cold night. 

“Where is Dallas, now?” She pressed the letter in her bosom; a 
wonderful thrill and fear passing through her. “Who had brought 
about this terror that broke the hearts of women!” 

As a reply to her, came a soft German voice below her: 

“It is the English who are responsible for this war.” 

The assertion struck Margery like a blow. She almost cried out 
in denial: “The English!” She knew the English had been dragged 
into it, against the wishes of everybody. She also knew that France 
had moved her army back five miles from the frontier line, so there 
could be no conflict—unless Germany invaded France. Neither 
England or France was to blame for the war. 

“Indeed, but no!” came in a ringing voice that she recognized 
as that of a Frenchman, though his German accent was exceedingly 
good. “This war was well under way before England got into it.” 

Margery, forgetting that she might be eavesdropping, leaned for¬ 
ward to catch each word. Protected by the darkness of the room, 
and the filmy curtain, she found she could see without being observed. 
Almost under her window, on a bench, she saw a fair-faced German 
in black leather, with silver wings on his cap and collar. There was 
more of the sportsman in his air than in that of any German soldier 
she had seen. Beside him in the French blue uniform, sat a dark¬ 
eyed boy, whose upper lip was faintly shaded. Both men wore their 
arms in slings. Near the German flyer, and the Frenchman, were 


TRAPPED 


159 


men in gray-green, and blue, seated on the grass in the sun. She 
pould survey the whole garden, and a single glace assured her 
every man there was wounded. On a distant bench sat two men in 
khaki. 

She felt her heart churning in her breast. Of course neither 
could be Dallas, she told herself. He could not drop out of the skies 
twice—but if they would turn so she could see their faces.... As she 
listened to the soldiers beneath her, her eyes watched greedily the 
khaki uniforms. 

“The primary cause of this war—'Lieutenant Guyot....” 

The Frenchman acknowledged courteously that he was being cor¬ 
rectly addressed. “You, I believe, are Lieutenant Persius?” 

The German flyer nodded and resumed. “The primary cause of 
the war was the killing of the Crown Prince of Austria and his wife, 
by a Servian, at the instigation of high officials in Servia and in St. 
Petersburg. The positive proofs of this may not have been made 
public—the war came on too soon to allow it—but the affair—had the 
appearance of an international plot.” 

“But no plot was ever proven. Servia was anxious to punish all 
who were guilty. Before the investigation was half finished Germany 
stopped it by declaring war.” 

“The Kaiser had implored the Czar not to mobilize,” siad the fly¬ 
er. “But England and France got behind him, and the order was 
given—or about to be given, which is the same thing... .and war was 
on.” 

“Stop! Stop!” interposed the excited little Frenchman. “You go 
too fast....” 

“Like our armies!” laughed a disagreeable voice. 

Margery veered a little and saw coming towards the two on the 
bench, a stout officer with stiff, red moustaches turned up at both 
ends. At her first view of him she felt one of those sudden dislikes 
that defy reason. She strained her ears, however, as Lieutenant 
Persuis introduced him as Captain Count von Janotha. Two young 
soldiers with wounded left arms brought forwaid a garden chair for 
him, which he took without even a nod of thanks. She also saw 
the Frenchman flush at the trivial discourtesy. 

“England caused this war,” announced the count positively, and 
before any one else could speak. “I’ve heard the Kaiser and the Em- 
porer of Austria say they longed with all their souls for peace.” 

“They were only kidding,” broke in a fresh young voice. 

Margery, and those below her on the bench, turned and looked at 
the speaker—a youngster in a French uniform, who was scrambling 
up from the ground on crutches, with the awkwardness of attempting 
the unusual. 

“The two kind-hearted old gentlemen,” he continued, with a twink- 


160 


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le in his bright eyes, “Are simply following the diplomacy of Bismark, 
while they lie to beat the band!” Then he laughed merrily. 

Everybody stared. 

“In the name of the Devil, who are you?” shouted Count von 
Janotha springing to his feet as if he would knock the soldier down, 
in spite of observing that he was wounded. 

“Oh! F,m a fool American” chuckled the boy as he steadied him¬ 
self against a tree. “So it is not a case of lese majeste y gentlemen. 
I happened to be in Paris when the scrap began; and remembering 
Lafayette and the French in the American revolution, I offered my 
services and was accepted. My name is Thornton—Randolph Thorn¬ 
ton.” He managed to take off his cap gracefully, before he again 
propped himself on his crutch against the tree. 

“I like you Randolph Thornton,” breathed Margery to herself. 

“Don’t let me call a lost ball here,” with a smile and nod to each 
of the group. “Go on with the game.” 

The affronted count promptly turned his back on the youngster. 

“Our cause is just,” said the flyer. “We are only fighting to 
preserve the Fatherland.” 

“R-r-rats!” flashed Randolph teasingly. “The Fatherland was 
in no danger. Nobody wanted an inch of her territory then or now. 
All the world asks of Germany is to be decent, and remain on her 
side of the Rhine—or whatever separates her form the rest of Eu¬ 
rope.” The two Germans ignored him—a self-confessed American, 
and not twenty-one years old. 

“Had it not been for Belgium, we would have reached Paris the 
first week of the war!” thundered Count von Janotha, without even 
glancing at Randolph and looking aggressively at the Frenchman, 
while striking his fist heavily into the palm of the other hand. “She 
sided with the French. We have been kind not to drive them into 
the sea.” 

“Belgium has proven her folly” added Persuis quickly, “of pin¬ 
ning her fiath to England instead of us.” 

“She has also proven the short-sightedness of the Germans.” re¬ 
torted Lieutenant Guyot. “Belgium was rapidly losing her Flemish 
distinction and becoming Germanized.* If you had continued build¬ 
ing factories in that country and sending your people there to run 
them and to marry the Belgiums, you would eventually have won 
that rich land and her superb ports” Guyot paused with his hands 
in the air for the Frenchman’s inimitable shrug. “But you made 
the mistake of most military governments. You tried force instead 
of influence.” 

“And like the dog, you’ve grabbed at the shadow, and lo-st the 
meat!” said Randolph, as if finishing the sentence. His remarks 
were contemptiously ignored by the “enemy.” 


*“How Belgium saved Europe.” 


TRAPPED 


161 


“We made no attempt to annex her,” growled the count, “because 
we did not want her.” 

“Not want her!” shrilled the Frenchman hotly. “Not want Bel¬ 
gium! the richest country in Europe, and key to England and France I 
You wanted her more than you wanted anything on earth. And 
you’ve lost her forever. The world is surprised at the Kaiser’s blun¬ 
der. You may now burn the cities of Belgium and kill the inhabi¬ 
tants—but you can’t hold it. The fugitives will finally return and 
drive you out! And England, who for Belgium’s sake entered the 
war, will continue her friend.” 

“Therefore you are now merely ‘Territory Phantom Chasers!’ ” 
grinned Thornton. His English and French comrades smiled faintly, 
if the Germans heard they gave no sign. 

“Do you believe that rot about England entering the war because 
we marched through Belgium?” asked Count von Janotha derisively. 

“I know it is true,” said one of the Englishmen abruptly, in fair 
German. “The king telegraphed the Kaiser that if his troops in¬ 
vaded Belgium he could not keep his country from declaring war. 
You know our king is not like your Kaiser; he is obliged to do what 
the people want.” 

“If the Kaiser had no more sense than the king of England, we 
would do that way too,” remarked the count dryly. 

“If” cut in the Englishmen, “the people of England had no more 
sense than the people of Germany, we would leave it to the king.” 

Thornton laughed a boyish guffaw, and Lieutenant Persuis 
smiled. 

“You may not acknowledge it,” the flyer observed, “but in your 
hearts you know that Germany is the most important country on earth. 
“I’ve heard the Kaiser say that the worl^ envied our superiority.” 

“The Kaiser says so!” scornfully repeated the Briton. “That’s 
the way with you Germans. You don’t look into things for your¬ 
selves.” 

“While you waste half your time rowing about what to do,” 
countered Lieutenant Persius. “We have a certain set of men to run 
the government.... ” 

“While the Reichstag talks!” threw in Thornton, but was igonred. 

“Our statemen make a study of their careers. They are edu¬ 
cated to fill certain positions, from the highest to the lowest. There 
is work for all, in our bee hive, and no drones.” 

“And we are ready for every emergency,” added the count con¬ 
ceitedly, “even war. England’s condition was ridiculous—Kitchener 
vainly imploring men to come forward and learn how to use a gun 
after the conflict was on! It was enough to make the god of war 
split his sides laughing!” 

“When Germany declared war,” added the flyer, every man knew 
exactly what to do. On my watch chain was a key to a certain locker 
in a certain place. I read the announcement. In two hours I was 


162 


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on my way to that certain town. When I opened my locker there was 
my uniform to the smallest detail. I took off my civilian suit and 
hung it in the locker. I donned my uniform and read the instructions 
pinned to an inner pocket, and reported for duty at the place desig¬ 
nated. In twenty four hours Germany was mobilized. How long 
did it take France? Russia confesses to six weeks, while England 
will be ready in the spring!” 

Both Germans laughed long and loud. 

“You were expecting war, and we were not,” declared Guyot. 

“That is not the reason,” insisted Persius. “It spells German 
efficiency '* 

“It spells German duplicity,” remarked Randolph in his same tone 
of disinterested criticism, to the Englishman who was still at his 
elbow. 

“We combine,” continued the flyer, “perfect skill and perfect 
organization. The world can’t beat it with a hurry call.” 

There was a thrilling pause. 

“Well,” said Thornton with the air of a judge summing up a 
case, “I must hand it to the Germans that they put it over the rest 
of Europe good and safe! Preaching PEACE and training every 
man in the empire to be a soldier! Keeping his equipment all ready 
for him in a special warehouse, and able to mobilize 6,000,000 men in 
fifteen minutes after a declaration of war! No, the world can’t beat 
it with a hurry call!” • 

“We do not expect to beat it with a ‘hurry call’,” replied the 
Englishman quietly. “It was Germany that expected the war to be 
over by Christmas. Lord Kitchener’s call is for three years or un¬ 
til the war is over, for it may be longer than that. We expect to hang 
on to this thing—till we win.” 

The Englishman rose. “It is folly to talk to a German,” he said 
in the ear of the boy. “The only argument he understands is force.” 

He limped slowly away, followed by his companion and the 
Frenchman. Margery tiptoed over and looked at her patient. He 
was resting quietly. When she returned to the window Randolph 
was saying: 

“That’s where you dropped your over-alls!” 

“Where we—what?” asked the flyer. 

“Where you fell down—failed to put it across. Oh! where you 
did the worst thing you could have done. It is the one thing we 
can’t understand or forgive. It has brought on Germany the resent¬ 
ment of all the neutral world. You’ve ruined Belgium, and not helped 
yourselves at all.” 

“The same thing took place under Weyler in Cuba, and under 
Sherman in his march to the sea,” growled the count. 

“Not the same things in America,” denied Thornton. “In the 
United States they burned property and destroyed provisions, but 


TRAPPED 


163 


they did not kill women and children; and the men who defended 
their homes were not molested after laying down their arms. 

“At least you’ll acknowledge,” sneered the count cynically, “that 
General Sherman told the truth when he said ‘War is hell’.” 

“General Sherman did the world more harm by creating that 
epigram that he did the Confederacy by his dash to the sea. The 
hearts he broke by that raid, are at rest; the waste places created by 
his army are blooming; and the hate born of it, has changed to love. 
But never till the end of time will the world recover from that dread 
sentence. “War is hell” has been accepted as an axiom; and every 
evil-disposed commander justifies himself for his barbarism, by quot¬ 
ing it. Because governments find it necessary to war, is no reason 
why women, children, babies, and old men should be rendered home¬ 
less and starving; to say nothing of the vile atrocities that have oc¬ 
curred in this struggle.” 

Randolph had won a medal or two, for oratory at college, and 
just here he secretly wished that the boys could have heard him “put¬ 
ting it over”, with the Germans.” 

“I’ve never heard of a nice little peaceable war,” said Count 
von Janotha harshly. He was growing angry at the turn the conver¬ 
sation was taking. 

“From what I’ve seen and heard it is pretty rotten,” agreed the 
Amercian. “I’ve nothing to suggest in its place. But there must 
be a way to stop anything so terrible.... ” 

“By making it so horrible that no nation will dare provoke war.” 
snapped the count, his jaws closing like a steel trap. 

“That will never stop it,” objected Thornton. “You Teutons 
would turn the old Huns gray with jealously if they’d wake up and 
see your ferocity; yet millions of men are volunteering and prepar¬ 
ing to down you, as jolly as if they were practicing for a world series.” 

“Look here, young man, be careful, or your tongue may get you 
and your country into trouble,” flamed Count von Janotha. “We 
have just learned that the United States is shipping arms and amu- 
nition to Russia. The Imperial Government has given notice that it 
must at once be discontinued. We don’t like to be compelled to issue 
the same order tiwce. If necessary we will teach America the same 
lesson we have taught Belgium.” 

With all his gay humor Randolph also had a temper of his own, 
though under good control; and he remembered it had been agreed 
that each was to be allowed free speech and no offence taken. His 
face shone as he challenged: 

“Now Captain, let me give you a piece of friendly advice; if 
ever you hope to win this fight—keep your hands off Uncle Sam.’ 

Both Germans laughed scornfully. . , 

“The scrap of an army that you have is badly disciplined.” 

“And your’s is disciplined to death!” exclaimed Thornton. “If 
your officers are killed, your men know only to retreat or surrender; 


1-64 


TRAPPED 


if ours fall, the sergeants or corporals, or even a pivate, will take 
charge, and go on with the game. We never say die!” Then he ad¬ 
ded seriously; “If you and I ever grapple, you are going to find us 
a combination of English bulldog tenacity and French whirl-wind 
valor.” With a quick smile he returned to his former good humor. 
“So I warn you, keep off the grass—our grass—if you want this 
scrap to end soon and in your favor.” 

“This war can not come to an end until England is at our feet,” 
exclaimed Count von Janotha, his smoldering wrath bursting out. 
He had curbed his temper as long as he intended. He was not going 
to hear Germany criticised directly or indirectly, by a boy hardly out 
of his teens. His country was right, no matter what had occurred. 
“I don’t care ad_what has been said about us,” he continued pas¬ 

sionately. “England put Belgium up to resisting us. We would have 
made quick work of France, though her people are brave. England 
is our only foe, curse her!” 

Lieutenant Persius looked at his superior offcer in surprise. He 
was perhaps ten years younger than the older man, but his pro¬ 
fession had compelled him to learn self-mastery. As a flyer lie must 
not only think quickly but he must never be caught off guard. There 
was chivalry in his branch of the service, and he did not know it was 
utterly lacking in some other departments of his army. His eyes 
might flash, and his anger touch white heat, but to further his 
country’s cause he could display the restraint he felt his uniform de¬ 
manded. 

“England—and the world—may as well know what it means 
to resist Germany,” Count von Janotha shouted. “I hope we have 
merited their title of ‘Barbarians,’ War is hell when we practice it. 
England would sacrifice half the life on earth in order to hold com¬ 
mand of the sea and force her commerce on the world. Cross the 
English interest, and you will se how quickly your freedom ceases. 
They brought on this war because we could under-sell the lazy, sport- 
loving, boasters of freedom! England!.... I hate her! I hate her f 
I HATE HER!!” 

His face was purple with rage and he sprang to his feet as he 
rushed on. “We will never stop until England is prostrate at our 
feet begging for mercy—which we will refuse!” He made a curious 
gesture as if grinding something out of existence, his body and voice 
vibrating with fury. “No man or woman of that race need ever ex¬ 
pect mercy at my hands! I should like to crush every one of them 
beneath my heel. Belgium and France may be forgiven, but England 
—NEVER!!” 

Behind the curtain Margery shrank back at his violence. 

“Oh! I hope I may never meet that man! He is venomous!” she 
gasped inwardly. Yet she watched him, fascinated by the uncertain¬ 
ty of what he might do or say. 

He drew a newspaper clipping from his inner pocket, evidently 



TRAPPED 


1-65 


unaware of the resentment in the face of Thornton, and the coldness 
in the averted eyes of his fellow officer. 

This is a copy of a poem that expresses my feelings, 1 ” he said, 
“better than any words of mine. The Kaiser decorated the author, 
and all Germany is reciting it. Have you read it—The Hymn of 
Hate?” 

Both men replied in the negative. 

Count von Janotha read with rasping voice the verses of ven¬ 
geance. 

“Remember young sir,” he said wheeling on Thornton, “We, who 
hate this way—are seventeen miles from Paris!” 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

Margery gets News of a Gay Subartern. 

Colonel Reintz stirred uneasily, and recalled Margery from the 
guttural denunciation of the German officer below her, to the softly 
lighted hospital room. 

iShe went quietly to her patient. He opened his blue eyes and 
smiled sleepily before he closed them again. The girl glanced at the 
clock and chart. It was time for nourishment. She touched the 
electric button twice, quickly, and before she finished taking and 
registering her patient’s pulse, Elsa entered with a tiny tray, cov¬ 
ered with a napkin. 

The prince-colonel was dozing again, and Margery with ther- 
moneter in hand, passed her fingers gently over his brow to rouse 
him. He slowly raised his heavy lids. His attractive smile broke 
over his face as he looked at Margery. 

“Have I not obey well?” he quizzed. 

“Beautifully,” Margery unconsciously returned his arch gaze. 
“You are the prince—of patients,” she added lightly. “Let me take 
jour temperature while Fraulein Elsa tells you the latest news from 
the front.” 

“No,” said Elsa her voice revealing excitement that she was trying 
to hide, “the General and staff are here; and the General wishes to 
have that pleasure.” 

Colonel Reintz was drinking his beef tea when Dr. Karl von 
Westarf entered with Fraulin Schmidt. The surgeon examined 
the chart and the patient’s pulse. 

“Fine!” he said, “you may see the general. 

He left the room to bring him in. 

Fraulein Schmidt passed her hand unnecessarily over the un¬ 
wrinkled bed spread, and glanced nervously around the room before 


166 


TRAPPED 


she took her stand beside the patient. Elsa and Margery flattened 
themselves against the wall behind her. 

“While within motor distance,” the general said as soon as he 
had greeted the patient, “I come to tell you that we are seventeen 
miles from Paris.” 

“Bravo!” cried Colonel Reintz radiantly. “I am very glad I 
lived to hear that!” 

“You must be as good a patient as you are a soldier, and improve 
rapidly so that you can convalesce in the delights of Paris. I regret 
that you will not be able to make the triumphal entry with us. Our 
quick advance is largely due to you.” 

Here Dr. vonWestarf made a signal, and the general brought his 
visit to a close. 

“The Kaiser,” he said, drawing a small box from his pocket, 
“sent this with orders for me to pin it on with his gratified thanks, 
and he is sorry that he cannot present it in person.” The Chief of 
Staff leaned over and pinned the Iron Cross on the hospital coat of 
the prince-colonel. 

Dr. vonWestarf hastily led the callers out—but not fast enough 
to prevent Fraulein Rachel from telling the general how deeply she 
felt the responsibility of the case. She returned to her post beside 
her patient and released Elsa and Margery from duty. 

As Margery and Elsa walked down the hall behind the Chief of 
Staff, their elbows touched, but their feelings were as opposite as 
the poles. 

“Within seventeen miles of Paris!” Margery inwardly repeated in 
blank horror. She had not believed 5 Count von Janotha’s announce¬ 
ment of this fact, as he stood beneath the window where she sat. He 
had made too many lurid statements for her to take him seriously. 
But she had just heard an official declaration. Evidently the Allies 
were being swept before the German advance. Somehow she had 
felt sure they would eventually hurl the Germans back. Some¬ 
thing in her breast felt squeezed and suffocated. “Seventeen miles 
from Paris!” 

“It is lunch time,” announced Elsa gleefully, “if they are served 
in the public dining hall we may get a good look at all of them.” 

Margery felt she never wanted to see another German—except 
the prince of course. The next news might be that they had taken 
Paris. 

She felt actually sick. “I can eat nothing now—I must get a 
breath of fresh air,” she told Elsa, and at the first cross corridor 
they parted. 

“How can I speak to the Englishmen?” she wondered. “That 
garden has been reserved for the soldiers, and the Germans are so 


TRAPPED 167 

strict about everything. Yet I might be allowed to go there with one 
of the American nurses.” 

It was pure luck that in the next hall she met Dixie Preston. 

“Oh, Miss Preston, do you know that an American came in last 
night among the wounded,” Margery asked her. 

“No!” cried Dixie exultantly. “I love him already. I must see 
him, or try to see him—after I dress the wounds of the Englishmen. 
They put me on the job because they thought they could not speak 
German. I am on my way to them now.” 

Margery’s eyes shone. “Let me help you,” she pled, “I’m crazy 
to speak to them.” 

“All right, come along,” Dixie agreed, “I don’t think anybody 
could object. If you will help I shall get through sooner and hunt 
up that blessed boy of Uncle Sam’s.” 

They passed through the large reception hall, where the “nearly 
well” were waiting, and entered a smaller room. 

“My office,” Dixie announced gaily, “the convalescents are 
treated here.” 

Almost immediately the two Englishmen entered., Margery un¬ 
wrapped their bandages while Dixie asked the prescribed questions; 

When and where wounded); how long had they been at the front; 
to which regiment did they belong, were some of the points covered. 

“Do you know anything—the last few days—of the Westmorland 
Guards?” stammered Margery, blushing gloriously. 

The Englishman looked at her sharply and sympathetically. “I— 
I don’t believe I do,” he admitted. 

The intense disappointment that came into her eyes, fixed on 
him—and not the bandage for the moment—made him add hastily, 
“Maybe my comrade here knows.” 

“The Westmorland Guards,” the other Briton repeated slowly. 
“I’ve certainly heard of them. It must be a famous regiment—West¬ 
morland—Guards—Yes! Bless my soul! I came out with a young 
subaltern, who was on his way to join that regiment. I’ve often 
wondered what the shuffle of the cards dealt him. He was the 
jolliest cub I ever saw go to war; and I was a recruiting officer and 
have had experience in seeing how men take it at first. By George 
this fellow was like a little beggar going to the circus. Laughing 
and ragging the others, he was a whole brass band.” 

It sounded like Dallas. Margery felt the blood beating in her 
ears. “What—was his name?” she asked breathlessly. 

There was a pause. “Stupid of me, but I can’t remember,” ad¬ 
mitted the soldier. If anyone abused the Germans for making this 
row he’d say, ‘Think of the fun we would have missed if they had 
been good. I never had this much fun before.’ Now I have it, his 
name was Russell—Lieutenant Russell.” 

“Russell,” repeated Margery blankly. 

“It can’t be Amos,” she thought. “He was always serious as a 


168 


TRAPPED 


sermon, and lately”—her memory winced and evaded just what ‘lately* 
stood for—“he was gloomy as a crypt in Westminster Abbey.” 

“What was his first name?” she asked aloud. 

“Don't think I heard it, but I am positive he was Lieutenant 
Russell. He was the jolly sort everyone naturally likes. Spent 
money freely for his men—treating them. He must have had plenty. 
He'd buy candy for the children, too, at one station, and drop it off 
at the next.” 

Like a strain of half-forgotten music there came to Margery 
the voice on the train at the junction—like and yet so unlike—one 
she knew. She remembered the khaki sleeve that dropped a package 
of sweets. Could this have been Amos? And—had she driven him to 
war? 

Her hands fumbled the bandage. A mist rose before her eyes. 
Mechanically she adjusted the gauze, and went on winding it round 
the soldier’s arm. Her mind began rapidly to answer its own ques¬ 
tions. It could not possibly have been Amos. He was never jolly, 
and he had no money. Besides he could not have received a commis¬ 
sion as a subaltern. When war was declared he told her he had never 
drilled a day in his life. “How absurd for me to torment myself 
with the idea that it might have been Amos. There are thousands of 
Russells in England, and Amos Russell is this minute in the X. Y. Z. 
office. I left England so that he could go back to his old position— 
and fulfill his career. I have not sent him to war—nor Dallas Hope 
either.” 

As her thought came back to Dallas—who was never completely 
out of her mind—her wonderful blush covered her face again. 

The soldier had his eye on her rising color. “Did you know 
Lieutenant Russell?” he asked half intimately. 

“No,” replied Margery, securing the bandage, and adjusting the 
sling over his shoulder, “I did not know him. From what you say 
though, I should like to know him.” 

“Have you heard that the Germans are seventeen miles from 
Paris?” she asked swiftly. 

“Guess we'll hang on, no matter how it goes,”he answered with 
British imperturbability. It steadied the girl. 

“Thank you,” she said looking straight in his calm eyes. 

“You are a long way from base,”,” he said significantly, “Cut 
for home your first chance.” 

As the soldiers left, Dixie detained Margery a second. 

“I had a card from Miss Andrews this morning, and she said Dr. 
Mason was still in a desperate condition.” 

It was the last straw somehow, to Margery. Bright, cheerful, 
Dr. Mason had braced her with the calm and courage of the soldier 
who was disappearing down the hall. But it had availed nothing. 
He was struggling helplessly with death. The Germans were sweep¬ 
ing down into Paris. 'She would’ possibly be held within the enemy’s 


TRAPPED 


169 


lines until the war was over. The soldier’s remark about being far 
from home, brought her a poignant sense of lonliness. Above all— 
no news from Dallas. If nothing had happened, surely he would 
have sent her a line. But she beat down the awful suggestion with 
the hope that he could send no mail under the circumstances. 

Her feet moved like lead, as she went towards the dining room. 
She preferred nursing Colonel Reintz to returning to the wards. She 
could better stand up under it, she felt in this depression. The war 
had gotten on her nerves, as Dixie said. iShe knew Fraulein Rachel 
would ask her if she had lunched. Luncheon was an important func¬ 
tion with the fraulein. At the door of the dining hall she met Elsa 
coming out. 

“I was near the staff and saw them all. To-night if we are off 
duty at the same time I will tell you all about it—for we are to room 
together—Our things have already been put in No. 14. All that wing 
has been converted into Colonel Reintz’s suite. I’m going to straight¬ 
en up now. Come on over as soon as you finish lunch.” 

After Margery had gone through the pretence of lunching, she 
peeped into No. 14, glimpsed the little white beds on either side, and 
a table between by the window, that over-looked the garden. 

Elsa was arranging some bright flowers in a vase. 

“We can rest better if we have something attractive to look at 
before we close our eyes for a nap,” she remarked. “I always carry 
small articles that give a homey touch. I know your things were 
lost. I am glad we shall be together—so you may enjoy these,” She 
smiled a bit shyly at Margery, as she unfolded a snowy embroidered 
dresser scarf. 

Margery thanked her warmly. 

“I have to report for duty and can’t tell you about the General 
and his staff now,” Elsa regretted, as she left the room. 

“I can live without hearing,” Margery observed to herself. 

She sat down and very quickly wrote a brief note to Lady Flor¬ 
ence, in German. 

Then she wrote and re-wrote and wrote again, a note to Dallas. 
Words seemed to say so little; her heart was so full, her English 
reticence plucking at her hand that longed contradictorily to set down 
her love. 

For there was no knowing who would read it before Dallas did, 
or indeed if it would ever reach him. Yet it might be the last word 
he would ever hear from her. So the last note conveyed about as 
much as the first, but it told it with something of the restraint of 
writing under the eyes of a stranger. 

“Oh this horrible war,” her eyes stung with tears, “He may not 
understand that I love him....He may never even receive this! 
Though Dixie Preston has promised to try to get it through for me; 


170 


TRAPPED 


and these Americans are wonderful when it comes to carrying a 
point.” 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

An Unexpected Message. 

When Margery went on duty at midnight Colonel Reintz was do¬ 
ing so well that Fraulein Schmidt told her, as she left the room, that 
she was going to undress and sleep the remainder of the night. She 
had not done this since the prince-colonel had been placed in her 
charge. 

The night valet took his seat outside the door. Margery read 
her instructions, and Dr. vonWestarf gave her additional cautions 
and left the room. The patient was sleeping. 

The night dragged on, with deadly quiet to Margery. The Col. 
onel still slept. 

About four o’clock Margery was astonished to see Dr. Westarf 
enter softly. Behind him followed Fraulein Rachel. A glance at 
them convinced Margery something unusual had happened. The 
surgeon deliberately awakened the prince-colonel. 

“I beg ten thousand pardons,” Dr. vonWestarf said to the pa¬ 
tient, “but I have information you must receive at once. I have just 
gotten a telegram from your father saying that a specialist from 
Berlin will meet us this afternoon in Brussels, and we are obliged to 
catch a train that leaves almost immediately.” 

Fraulein Rachel explained to the girl that she—Margery—was 
also to accompany the prince; that Elsa had packed for her, and her 
baggage had already left for the station; and Elsa was bringing her 
coat and hat. 

Too amazed to protest, absolutely ignorant of what course to 
pursue, and indifferent as to whether she were in Brussels or Reaux 
—since Paris was probably in the hands of the Germans, and hope 
of being soon sent there with the Americans abandoned—Margery 
silently acquiesced. 

A litter was brought in; Colonel Reintz was lifted on it, and 
was carried to an ambulance at the front door. The surgeon enter¬ 
ed with him; and Fraulein Schmidt, Elsa, Bertha, and Margery 
stepped into a waiting auto, that followed the ambulance as it moved 
slowly down the zig-zag street toward the station. 

As they crept down the mountain, Margery was surprised that 
there were other passengers to take the early train. Motor after 
motor whizzed past them and were lost in the semi-darkness of the 
cold dawn. As a protection against hostile air-crafts the streets were 
in total darkness during the entire night. Light gleamed through 
the red crosses in the windows of the Lafayette hospital; and here 


TRAPPED 


171 


and there in the dark houses, a door cautiously cracked, letting a glow 
fall over the road, while a head protruded to see what so much pas¬ 
sing meant. Sometimes a pale glint on a shaded curtain told that 
the occupant within considered the night gone, and another day of 
unrest begun. 

At the station they found the train awaiting their arrival. An 
entire car had been reserved for Colonel Reintz, and immediately 
after he was installed, the train shot out of Reaux, sweeping through 
the tunnel. When the sun rose the village had been left far behind. 

The train was curiously bumpy and uncomfortable. Margery 
could not understand it until she remembered that the French had 
torn the railroad up, as they retreated, and that the Germans had 
hastily replaced it. Mile after mile they jolted noisily along. While 
circling a curve a sudden jar would almost dislodge them from their 
seats. 

The effect upon the patient was alarming. The pain of his 
wound was excrutiating. Twice he was almost tossed from his 
berth. Each time he grew so white Margery thought he would faint. 
He made no sound, but he would give her a look of pleading, as if 
she could lesson his agony in some subtle way. 

Dr. vonWestarf had the speed of the train reduced, but nothing 
could still the rumlble and clatter of the wheels. Fraulein almost 
encased the wounded prince in pillows, yet the constant shaking was 
enough, Margery knew, to irritate his wounds. The shades were 
lowered, but they swayed with the motion of the train, the sun stream 
ing in glaringly, paining his eyes. At the next station Dr. vonWest¬ 
arf had the shades nailed down, but this increased the heat. The dust 
too, became suffocating. Elsa fastened damp cloths over the win¬ 
dows but it was only a partial protection. Everything possible was 
done for the patient’s comfort, but the thermometer showed that his 
fever was returning. Each time his temperature was taken an in¬ 
crease was recorded. 

Dr. von Westarf looked very grave, except when talking to the 
prince-colonel. Margery and Elsa were excused, and two assistant 
physicians took their place. Fraulein Schmidt remained with him, 
she seemed to have grown fond of the young soldier with his mag¬ 
netic smile—or of her unusual responsibility. 

Margery talked to Dr. vonWestarf a moment in an adjourning 
compartment. “It might have been wiser to have left the patient in 
your care, instead of risking this long journey. Particularly when 
he was doing beautifully.” 

Dr. vonWestarf looked at her as if her critism was startling. 

“One must obey orders without comment,” he said gravely. 

Margery flushed, remembering instantly that she was under 
German rule; and she resolved that she would venture no more re¬ 
marks if the prince were dying. 

At LaFenelle they were to change cars for Brussels. At the 


172 


TRAPPED 


station before reaching LaFenelle the train was held while Dr. von 
Westarf sent and received telegrams, and talked over the long dis¬ 
tance telephone. As the train waited and Elsa and Margery sat at 
their compartment's windows, a wounded soldier passed selling post 
cards. The girls bought some, and Margery wrote hastily good-bye 
notes to Miss Andrews and Dixis Preston, telling them she had been 
ordered to Brussels. 

“There's a box on that post," said Elsa withdrawing her head 
from the window, “let's go out and mail our cards." 

The guard assured them they would have time and that he would 
signal them before the train pulled out. They were truly anxious 
about the prince-colonel's unexpected relapse, but it was fine to be 
in the fresh air, and they enjoyed the brisk walk to the box. Other 
passengers, taking advantage of the stop to stretch their legs, were 
moving about the platform. Several stopped to look admiringly at 
the pretty Red Cross nurses. 

The girls had just dropped the cards in the mail box, when Mar¬ 
gery was amazed to see Count von Jonatha appear in the crowd and 
come swiftly to Fraulein Elsa, with extended hand. Lieutenant 
Persuis was just behind him. Elsa introduced them both to Margery. 
The officers joined them as they walked back, and on reaching their 
car, asked if they might not sit with them until they reached La¬ 
Fenelle. Both girls refused in a breath, explaining that Fraulein 
Rachel would not allow it. If Lieutenant Persuis had been alone 
Margery would have expressed regret, with her eyes as well as her 
voice, as they stepped on board. They were afraid Fraulein Schmidt 
would be shocked if she saw them entertaining officers while their 
charge was so ill. So they went at once to their compartment. 

The officers, however, were not so easily eluded. Pretty Ger¬ 
man girls in France were now a rarity, and the prince was not the 
only man who appreciated beauty, nor yet the only man on earth. 
They decided that Fraulein Schmidt could not blame the girls if they 
followed and talked to them through the windows of their compart¬ 
ment. In a moment Fraulein Elsa’s eyes were welcoming the 
Flyer, and the count's fierce moustaches were smiling at Margery. 

He was not very lucky, however, in winning her smiles. Her 
feeling of dislike for him, increased to repugnance as he stood there 
trying to play the gallant. She replied to his questions, almost in 
monosyllables. Then she would pensively look straight over, his 
head, offering no observation at all. When the train started, Persuis 
was trying to conceal his amusement, and the count was furious at 
being snubbed in the presence of others. 

“She is a d... .impertinent, little fool!" he said under his breath 
as he hurried to his car. 

“Why should they be going to Brussels?" wondered Margery. 


TRAPPED 173 

“Their wounds are nearly healed, I judge, and they would be nearer 
the front at Reaux.” 

“Lieutenant Persuis lost a finger in a daring fight, but he 
jammed the enemy’s air craft,” explained Elsa enthusiastically. “He 
expected to be killed, but somehow he escaped.” 

“Not born to die that way,” observed Margery, with war-bred 
philospohy. 

“The count has a flesh wound on his left leg,” Elsa resumed. 
“If he had received prompt attention, it would have been well before 
this. But he tried to treat it himself, fearing if he mentioned it, 
he would be sent to a hospital. It is doing nicely now. I dressed 
their wounds at LaBellevue, and each told me about the courage of 
the other. The count is not handsome, but he is a grand fighter!” 

“And has the temper of Old Nick himself,” thought Margery. 

The train began to move slowly and then settled down to a 
rhythmic jiggle. Very soon forgetting the count and the prince, 
both girls were asleep. 

When they reached LaFenelle instead of changing cars and 
going on to Brussels, Colonel Reintz was taken at once to a large 
building not far from the station. 

“I feel sure,” said Dr. von Westarf to Fraulein Schmidt, as the 
patient on his litter was lifted into a waiting ambulance, “that this 
reverse is only temporary. We had to obey orders,” he sighed. 
“The Germans will soon win back what they have lost. They will 
never be pressed back this far. If they should, Colonel Reintz will 
be very much better in two days, or_” 

The sentence was left unfinished and the Fraulein nodded grim. 

ly. 

The ambulance stopped before a large building that occupied 
almost the entire front of a square. Margery thought it was a mag¬ 
nificent hospital. On entering it, however, she realized her mistake. 
Men in uniforms stood in groups talking, officers wth anxious faces 
hurried in and out, guards stood at the entrance of the corridors, and 
before some of the doors. Later Margery learned it was the Hotel 
DeVille, which the Germans were now using as Headquarters for the 
Chief of Staff. The building was in the shape of a T. The top 
faced the street while the long stem extended back between two gar¬ 
dens. These gardens were each surrounded by a high iron fence. 
The stem of the building had been selected as an ideal suite for 
Colonel Reintz. Here he could be kept absolutely quiet, if necessary, 
which was impossible in hotels or hospitals, if many wounded men 
were being brought in. 

Dr. Westarf, his assistant physicians, and Fraulein Schmidt 
made a quick tour of investigation. They were pleased because they 
recognized the possibilities of the suite, though only the rooms to 
be used by Colonel Reintz were ready for hospital service. These, 
however, were in perfect order—even to the electric button at the 


174 


TRAPPED 


head of the white bed. There was nothing to indicate the recent 
presence of workmen, though Elsa told Margery later, that they had 
left only when the train arrived. As soon as the prince-colonel 
was in his apartments, and the doors closed, the force in charge of 
preparing the entire suite returned, and before night everything 
was arranged—even Elsa’s dresser scarf and vase of roses—in her 
bed room. 

Colonel Reintz was quivering in every nerve from the jerking, 
the noise, and the pain in his wound, when he was carried into the cool 
quiet room. His pulse was strong though quick, so it was decided for 
the moment, to let nature take its course. 

“Don’t do a thing to me, but let me sleep,” he begged when he 
was lifted into the fresh white pillows. He closed his light-weary 
eyes like a tired child. 

“You may sleep,” said Dr. vonWestarf. 

Fraulein Schmidt looked a little annoyed and glanced question- 
ingly at the surgeon. 

“We shall examine the laceration when he awakes,” answered 
Dr. vonWestarf, reading what was in her mind. 

For two hours the patient slept. When he opened his eyes he 
declared he felt like a different man. Perfect quiet and rest had 
soothed him and his fever was abating. Dr. vonWestarf too, appear¬ 
ed instantly a different man. As Fraulein Schmidt caught the smile 
in his eyes, she sank limp and pale in a chair near the door, and 
murmured something about a sick headache. Now that the intense 
strain was lessened, the pain in her head had asserted itself. 

Dr. vonWestraf ordered her off to bed, and asked Margery to 
assisted him in dressing the wound. Fraulein reluctantly withdrew. 
Margery at once began preparations for the surgical task, and the 
prince suddenly became talkative. 

“You know I was nearly killed the day before I was wounded,” 
he said. “I suppose I must have been dreaming about it, just now. 
We had stopped for a consultation, in a small house, near the road, 
and had spread the map on the table—sipping a cup of coffee and 
eating a sandwich—when a shell suddenly took off the roof. We ran 
out,” his fascinating smile swept his face at the recollection, “and 
we stood not upon the order of our going, either.” His smile faded. 

“A second shell demolished the house, and killed two orderlies 
who had rushed back after the map. A splinter struck me in the 
finger—merely a flesh wound—” he glanced carelessly at his band¬ 
aged left hand, “and no one else was hurt. 

He paused a moment and said, “D.... the spies! It is an ig¬ 
noble business. Necessary doubtless, like vultures; but war would 
be less terrible without them. I don’t believe any truly noble person 
ever acts as a spy. Do you?” he suddenly asked Margery as she 
bent over him to remove the bandages. 

“—I-1 don’t know.” she hesitated. “In Belgium I saw two 



TRAPPED 


175 


men led off to be shot as spies and they did not look like cowards. I 
was told they refused to have their eyes bandaged, and before they 
were shot they said they were patriots and glad to die for their 
country.” 

“All spies are not cowards,” Dr. von Westarf put in. “In times 
of peace the spy is despicable; but in war, many feel that they are 
acting nobly to risk life and fame to gain the information their 
country needs. It is a mistaken sense of duty, and I am glad I have 
never been called to fulfill that role.” His eyes were on Margery’s 
capable hands—somehow there was something he could not help 
but dream of, when he saw this girl. 

“No power could enforce me to do the sneaking, false-friend, 
things necessary to be a spy,” said the colonel-prince. “As I said 
before they may be necessary—O—oh!” 

Margery had begun taking off the bandages, and the conver¬ 
sation ended. When they were entirely removed, Margery saw that 
one stitch had given way, and that a tiny spot of pus was forming 
near it. She glanced at Dr. von Westarf’s face, and saw that his lips 
were closely pressed together. Neither spoke. When the wound 
was dressed again the surgeon said brightly: 

“I will remain with Colonel-Reintz this afternoon and hear some 
more of those hair-breadth escapes. You must walk an hour and 
then rest until nine, as I shall wish you on duty to-night. Tell 
either Fraulein Elsa, or Bertha, to sit in the consultation room to 
answer if I should ring.” 

Not by the quiver of an eyelid did the girl betray she under¬ 
stood the case had become a serious one, and that Dr. von Westarf 
must keep the patient under his eye. As she left the room he was 
asking the young prince what would be his first pleasure when he 
was out again. 

Margery delivered her message, to Elsa, then, lifting the portier 
that divided their suite from the main building, started down the 
corridor. She was halted by a guard who asked her name, her age, 
her place of birth, her business, the date of her arrival in the town 
and scores, it seemed to the tired girl, of other needless questions. 
The guard was a good-looking, boyish fellow, and he assured her in 
an apologetic tone that it was merely a matter of form. He had a 
wounded toe, and Margery imagined he had volunteered his services 
rather than idle around the hospital. He filled out two cards, filed 
one, and handed Margery the other. 

“You forgot to ask me one question!” she said sweetly. 

“Indeed?” he exclaimed, reaching for her card, and taking the 
other from the file. 

“You’ve asked everything possible about my life—except if I 
said my prayers night and morning.” Her bronze-tipped lashes droop- 


176 


TRAPPED 


ed archly, and she pushed past him with a merry la She had 
a vision of him bowing and grinning as she passed c. 

Margery had never before been in LaFenelle, an lardly knew 
in which direction to walk. As she hesitated on the sr she heard 
music—chorus singing, it seemed—to her left, and tr that way. 
She wanted to see who could be so gay in such gloor ::mes. She 
walked a block passing a hotel—now used as a hosp. , as the red 
cross on each window proclaimed. Round the corne as a garden 
and across from it, a park—a large square filled wl: hrubbery, a 
few fine trees, flowers, garden benches, chairs and roles. Here in 
times of peace, she knew a band would play in the Lternoons, and 
you could drink coffee of absinthe, or read a paper ;le enjoying 
the balmy air. The park now was still and aim-: : empty. The 
singing rose from the garden, which a few steps id re showed her 
adjoined the hospital. The singers were wounded .rman soldiers. 
Margery stood with others looking through a fenct nd listening to 
their really fine voices. All sang as if trained. was touching 
to see their wan faces light up as they sang foil*-songs of love, 
home, or country. Sometimes it was a hymn. 

A soldier on crutches, with a leg gone, was pis g on a French 
harp. Margery wondered if he knew his musical istrument came 
from the enemy’s land. Then she remembered tht music and art 
had been declared neutral. When the performer 1 red a familiar 
air, it was taken up by a burst of song. All joine n as lustily as 
their weak condition allowed. Their pleasure fror small a thing 
brought the tears to Margery’s eyes. 

In the park, or square, she saw several Red C: nurses watch¬ 
ing children playing in the band stand. She di not join them. 
She was hungry for a little time alone—a little tin look into her 
own heart. There was so much to think about, sir ~hat wonderful 
letter—that she felt now over her heart—had mac r sure of love. 
All those dear questions that she wanted to ask alias she had not 
had a moment to even ask herself. 

When had he begun to love her? That very : night when he 
sat by her at dinner? Or that day when he swun out of his march 
down the street of London to walk beside her, and ged her to go on 
to the station? Or when he felt the train was pull: him away? Had 
a moment revealed it? Had it grown like a flady glow from a 
.rising sun? 

Glances, intimate moments on that dear wal the gray sea, 
when he stepped down from the train to her sm— pauses that had 
seemed too complete to need words, rushed over : gain, thrilling 
her with a fire she had not felt at the mcme Had he known 
then? Did he want to tell her, that queer, bearful minute when 
he leaned forward suddenly, after they had bee oking toward the 
sea, and as if he were going to speak—and yet td not? He seemed 
to have a grip of all he wanted to say—but the exquisite sensation 


TRAPPED 


177 


of communion that needed no words—had seemed to stop him. It 
filled her with the mysterious sense of union—and completion—with 
which love surprises the soul—that something, that is intangible, 
but is so actual, so satisfying and startling in its first revelation. 
If he could be with her! If he were walking by her side—what 
would he.do—or say— or look first? She could guess, for did she 
not know what she would do if he were here—if all the world looked 
on. 

A hunger for him waked in her; a need for protection. She 
was suddenly aware of how tired she was, how young, how utterly 
girl-like under her nurse’s mask of composure. She longed to help— 
she thrilled as she knew he prized her for her task of sacrifice— 
but she wanted to sink in his arms—and rest. Tears blinded her 
eyes and rushed down her face. She could not even hear from him, 
or know if he were living, or a “casualty” in some hospital. It 
seemed weeks since she had had his letter. 

Then she remembered that it had been a long time since she 
had heard from Lady Florence, not since Reaux fell into the hands 
of the Germans. The cencorship might become so strict that no mail 
would be allowed either way. Dallas and Lady Florence would be 
troubled about her, when they received no news, as she about them. 
As she thought of Brussels she became more depressed. They would 
go there as soon as Colonel Reintz could travel. Then she wondered 
who this handsome young prince really was. If he had a wife why 
did she not come to him. 

“Maybe he is only engaged, and some girl is miserable because 
he has been wounded so desparately.” Again she winced with fear. 
Was Dallas wounded? He might be hanging between life and death. 

“I must do everything possible to save the prince,” her thought 
broke into prayer. “0! God reward me a hundredfold by causing 
some nurse to be good to Dallas—as I am good to the prince.” 

iShe had walked round the square. The nurses and the children 
were gone. A garden seat, half-hidden by a group of cedars, attracted 
her. She followed an impulse and sat down there. She took out 
her watch, though, and held it in her hand, to make sure that she 
did not over-stay her hour. 

Her reverie was broken iby the appearance of a tall, stately man, 
in the costume of a Hindu prince. His long beard was densely black, 
and as he removed his Oriental head covering she saw his hair was the 
same peculiar hue. His large dark eyes were the most beautiful, their 
expression the most kindly, she had ever seen. She sat spell-bound. 

He bowed with Eastern courtliness, and in a singularly musical 
voice asked if she were Miss Margery Keblinger, of Oakhurst, Eng¬ 
land, and a friend of Lady Florence Gordon 

Margery had to swallow her intense surprise before she could 
say that she was. 


178 


TRAPPED 


“You know Lord Dalhousie, and his friend Lord Carnes, quite 
well?” 

“They are my best frends." (She gave a gasp of sudden under¬ 
standing. “You are Prince Mavalanka, of Rajputana?” 

“I am” he replied simply; “though, as you possibly know, I am 
for the most part living incognito, here, and I ask you not to men¬ 
tion my rank or even meeting me,” Then without giving her time 
to speak, he continued gently but impressively. “I am the bearer 
of a message to you from Lord Carnes. You have not told that you 
are an Englishwoman?" 

It was half a guestion, half a statement. 

“But they know it,” cried Margery. “Miss Andrews told them 
I am sure...." 

“You have not mentioned it yourself?" The same half ques¬ 
tion half statement. 

Then she added hastily, “There has been no occasion." 

“Won’t you make an occasion?" he moved back as he spoke, “So 
that I may be able to write Lord Carnes that you have done so?" 

“Certainly I will," Margery agreed quickly. She felt curious 
ly embarrassed, and opened and closed her hand on the watch she 
held. “I shall be glad to do it, though I feel sure they already know. 

With the sweetest most re-assuring of smiles, and a low bow 
as he thanked her, the prince disappeared around the clump of thick 
cedars. 

“He saw me looking at my watch, and thought I was in a hurry," 
Margery exclaimed to herself disgustedly, rising and hastening after 
him and possible news from home. As she rounded the circle 
of cedars, she almost ran into the arms of Count vonJanotha. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

Margery Decides to Trust Her Own Judgment. 

“Which way did prince—the gentleman go?" Margery asked 
breathlessly, as she drew away from the count, and looked about 
the empty square. 

The count roared with laughter. 

In spite of herself, Margery flushed, her wonderful enveloping 
blush. 

“Oh! ho!” the count chuckled derisively. “So it is a gentleman 
that you are meeting in this secluded nook! As I come, he runs 
away!” 

The count winked at her with another disagreeable shout of 
laughter. 

“No, he walked away, in a perfectly dignified manner," retorted 
Margery with a withering glance—-which did not wither. 


TRAPPED 


179 


“Tell it to the Jackdaws!” exclaimed the count mockingly. “He 
calls himself a prince. A prince within....” he motioned toward the 
Hotel de Ville, “and a prince without. What chance has a mere 
count, among rivals of such exalted rank?” He shot at Margery 
an amorous—and what he considered to be—a fetching glance. 

“I—must be going,” said Margery coolly, glancing at the watch 
she held in her hand. The art of putting the impertinent at a 
necessary distance, was her birth right, as a high born English girl, 
and her unusual social experience had given her poise beyond her 
years. 

The count felt her distinction in the fine power with which 
she repelled him. As she stuck her watch in her belt it caught the 
sunlight, and he saw it was encrusted with diamonds. He paused— 
mentally—to consider, as she quietly passed on ahead of him. 

“She may be some princess nursing incog. I—had better go 
slow. iStill she is young—and a deuced pretty woman—and it’s pre¬ 
cious few we get to look at these days.” 

He amended his tone—and manner—as he overtook her. 

“Not so fast Fraulein—not so fast!” he gasped. 

Margery did not lessen her speed. 

“Dr. von Westarf told me to return at a certain hour, and I 
must be on time,” she replied, still keeping that impassable distance 
between them. She did not mention that she was nearly a half hour 
ahead of time. 

“I see,” the count ventured to tease, “the minutes got away 
from you while you dallied with the princeling. Now you must run 
from the count to make up for it.” 

She made no reply, but she felt relieved when they reached the 
pavement where many were passing. The crowd was a protection. 
She lessened her pace so that she would not appear to be running 
from the man. But she did not glance toward him as he hung at 
her elbow, with gay—even clever remarks. She barely replied to 
his direct questions. When she reached the steps of the Hotel de 
Ville, she bade him a glacial “good afternoon.” He escorted her 
gallantly up the steps, opened the door, and accompanied her to the 
portiere in the corridor, which divided the government apartments 
from the suite of Colonel Reintz. Here she showed her card to the 
guard, nodded curtly, and left the count glaring at the curtain. 

The young soldier grinned behind his hand. The count covered 
his discomforture by inquiring about Colonel Reintz. As the guard 
knew nothing he turned on his heel and left. 

“Little upstart of a nurse!” he hissed to himself, “I’ll get even 
with her—unless she really is a princess. In which case—I must 
find out about her. I’ll keep my eye on her.” 

He turned down the opposite hall, and ascended the steps lead- 
into to the office of General von Meyer. 

Margery preparing for a fifteen minute nap, at that moment 


180 


TRAPPED 


suddenly remembered the promise she had made the friend of Lord 
Carnes. At that instant, however, it was impossible to fulfill it. 
Fraulein was in bed, and Dr. von Westarf was with the prince-colonel. 

As she thought about it, it seemed to her to be foolish to lug 
in by the ears a reminder that she was English. It might look as if 
she objecter to nursing a German of rank—or even worse, that she 
was' trying to shirk responsibility, now that his case was growing 
serious. She was glad to help, and through some child-like reasoning 
of her newly awakened faith, she felt obscurely but strongly, that 
her devotion to her duty at hand—Colonel Reintz—could be returned 
by somebody’s care of Dallas Hope. That Captain Hope might es¬ 
cape any injury, never occurred to her. To be slightly wounded or 
captured, was the best anyone might hope for in this dreadful war. All 
her thinking now led to Dallas. Instead of her thought clinging here, 
as usual, it swung back uneasily to her promise to tell she was Eng¬ 
lish. 

“What if I am English?” she asked herself, as she slid out of her 
starched uniform. “I am as expert as the Germans. Because I was 
expert, I was selected to come here—after a night’s work with the 
German wounded. 'Since they know that I am English, why should 
I suddenly tell them? Rub it in, as it were. Red Cross nurses, 
like music and art, are neutral. They help all. Lord Carnes was 
mistaken in thinking they do not know. How did he know I was 
here?” She stopped arrested by a new thought. “He simply did 
not know it,” she decided. “So he certainly could not have sent the 
Indian Prince to me here. He has probably written the prince about 
somebody else. He may also have mentioned that I was at the front 
—and the prince has confused names. Or if Lord Carnes has in 
some way found out that I am in LaFenelle and sent the prince, it 
was because Lord Carnes thought they did not know I was English. 
So there is no need for me to worry.” She gave a sleepy yawn of 
relief, as she crept in bed. “If it comes up—in any way not to seem 
disagreeable—I shall mention that I am English.” She wound up 
the clock, and was soon asleep. 

When the alarm sounded, she dressed quickly and went to the 
nurse’s sitting room. “The consultation office,” as they called it. 
It was three doors from the prince-colonels apartment, and the 
electric button near his bed touched off the bell in this room. 

Margery was a few minutes early. The room was occupied. 
Elsa was chatting gaily to Lieutenant Persuis, the count, and one of 
the young assistant surgeons. Evidently Elsa had just dressed the 
wounds of the count and Lieutenant Persuis, and they were lingering 
for a moment’s relaxing conversation. It was just what Margery 
was needing; and if the count had not been laughing loudly in the 
midst, she would have thrown herself into the light chatter. The 
count was not only there, but staring at her openly, admiringly. 
When she looked away from him—as she did most of the time—she 


TRAPPED 


1*1 


felt his eyes upon her. It gave her a creepy feeling 1 , and a desire 
to flee. She told herself she was an absurd English school-girl— 
frightened at a man's stare. Otherwise the count was as courteous 
as the others. But the shivers in her blood persisted under his de¬ 
liberate gaze. Though she appeared to disregard it, small talk failed 
her. She dropped out of the little group, leaving the center of the 
stage to Elsa. Lieutenant Persuis seemingly perceiving that she 
did not want to talk, drew a paper from his pocket, and asked her if 
she wanted to read the news. 

She thanked him, and under the pretence of getting nearer the 
light, she turned her back to Count von Jonatha. He left the room, 
and in a few moments returned and took a seat where, without turn¬ 
ing his head, he could look directly at her. There was something 
sinister in it all to the girl. She could not move a second time, so 
she glued her eyes to the head lines, which announced German vic¬ 
tories at sea as well as on land. To read such news over and over, 
under the count’s basilisk gaze, depressed her. That queer sensa¬ 
tion of something stealthily approaching her, filmed her with pre¬ 
monitions of evil. 

The stroke of the hour roused her. She hid the relief with 
which she rose. (She did not meet the count’s eyes, and unhurriedly 
excused herself to go on duty. In the corridor she took a long 
breath, and by a deliberate effort of spirit—or wi]ll—threw out of 
her mind the uncanny feeling that had enveloped her. 

When she entered Colonel Reintz’s room, one glance at the 
chart told her that the patient was no better. Nothing, of that 
could be guessed from Dr. von Westarf’s face, as he rose and went 
out. There was no need to ask him a question. He had, as usual, 
left written instructions. Margery knew he had gone to rest, and 
that Fraulein Elsa and the young doctor would remain in the con¬ 
sultation office in case she needed them. The night valet she also 
knew was at the door, ready to go at once for Dr. von Westarf, at 
a nod from Margery. 

As the door closed on the surgeon, Colonel Reintz turned to her 
with his charming smile. 

“I’m tired lying here and being gazed at all day long. Let’s 
talk,” he suggested with a wonderfully naive smile. 

“Suppose I talk and you listen,” smiled Margery. 

He nodded, a magnetic flash of pleasure irradiating his face. 

“The Kaiser?” 

He waved his hand dissentingly. 

“The Germans are doing wonderful things in the air, on the 
sea and_” 

“Dr. Karl and the fraulein have dosed me with those Great 
Deeds of the Germans. I want you to tell me about—yourself. 
How did you chance to come to the front? Pure patriotism or..” 


182 


TRAPPED 


he hesitated, his eyes concluding the sentence, eloquent with admira¬ 
tion. 

Margery blushed, the deepest rose pink, as she remembered just 
what had brought her to the front. A jest! The silly prank that 
she had tried to play on Amos, and how miserably it had miscarried. 
She had vainly endeavored to think that offering her services to the 
Red Cross was caused by patriotism, as others imagined. Her pre¬ 
sent flash of recollection was self-revealing. Her sudden decision 
was taken to escape a disagreeable situation. This, seemed so long 
ago—in literally another world. But after she discovered the awful 
need of the wounded, nothing could have tempted her to desert. 
This fact came quickly in, and trod down that uneasy sensation she 
always experienced when Amos Russell came to her mind. The 
great fact of finding herself—finding a spiritual world—stretch¬ 
ed, too, between that selfish decision, and this moment. What now 
held her to her work was more than patriotism—not merely love of 
country, but the love of humanity. It was impossible to give in 
words anything of this review to Colonel Reintz, either the spirit 
of the thing, or the complicated details of the actual happenings. 
While she stood arrested by this stab of memory, her scarlet blush 
appeared to be merely a girl’s timidity, occasioned by the rank and 
appearance of her questioner. 

Colonel Reintz added: 

“Shall I guess? A lover at the front?” 

Her sweet color deepened. iShe wanted to tell him outright— 
the poor motive—that was ignoble, and held no romance at all. Though 
she opened her lips, she simply couldn’t speak the self condemning 
words, while those blue eyes looked into hers so expectantly. 

The girl was on the high road to self-conquest; but it was a new 
road, where she took each turning by deliberate decision, not in¬ 
stinctively; and her long habit of drifting with the tide, claimed her. 
There was no time for a conscious decision. Her instant of waiting 
let the psychological moment pass. 

“Ach Ja! I see,” the prince-colonel’s face glowed as he looked 
at her, his Germanis sympathy for romance responding to this sug¬ 
gestion. His blue eyes looked earnestly and tenderly straight in 
hers as he breathed, “May God bring him back with fame and all 
his limbs!” 

Margery choked a little, but her heart cried: “Amen. Amen.” 

She had thought of Dallas in such subtle association with the 
prince, that for the moment it seemed that her secret had been read 
—and promised to her. Was she not hoping and praying that her 
devotion to the prince would bring the needed help to Dallas—and now 
she heard her own wish from her patient’s lips. Her response came, 
“This is—more than kind. I appreciate all you say—more than 
I can tell you. But,” she concluded with swift self-rememberance. 


TRAPPED 


183 


“I am not being a good nurse when I let you say—even such beauti¬ 
ful things. Now let me read to you.” 

“No—I want to talk—” 

“Then I shall have to send for Dr. von Westarf, who needs 
sleep,” she smiled imploringly, archly. “Do you want him to think 
me a poor nurse?” 

“You disarm me. You sentence me. Noblesse obligel I had 
much to say. Though if you are engaged.... !” 

He shut his lips close, and lay smiling at her. Then, “May I ask 
you to read to me?” 

Margery longed with girlish curiosity to know what he wanted 
to say. But she could not let him talk. His pulse was already 
quickening. She took up a book of poems lying on the white-covered 
table and began reading the first lines that lay uppermost. 

“He the best of all, the noblest, 

Oh how gentle, oh how kind! 

Lips of sweetness, eyes of brightness, v ' 

Steadfast courage, lucid mind.” 

Dallas! Dallas Hope! His face in its beauty of early manhood, 
and his heart and spirit, looked up at her through the lines. 

The reading of this word picture, which portrayed, with such 
fidelity her lover, caused her heart to beat almost to suffocation— 
her voice to fail her completely; and once more the color stained her 
cheeks. But the soft, bright eyes of the prince-colonel rested upon 
her, as gently as a benediction; and so she read on, and on. 

A restless movement of her patient, caused her to ask, “What 
is it?” 

“Nothing,” he replied lightly. “A shiver passing over me. It 
is gone. Read me another love poem.” 

Eperience may be dear, but she is a swift teaeher. Margery 
knew all that shiver might mean. She rose and felt his pulse: while 
her other hand, unseen, pressed the electric button near the bed. 
Then she opened the door casually, as if for a wandering breeze, 
and nodded at the valet. 

Elsa, waiting, two rooms away, called the young surgeon the in¬ 
stant she heard the three quick rings. The valet notified Dr. Karl 
von Westarf. Both physicians started hastily towards the sick room; 
but they lounged in the door, as if accidentally loafing in the 
corridor. 

Margery was quietly taking the patient’s temperature. 

“Colonel Reintz has been a perfect patient for an hour,” she 
said cheerfully when the surgeons entered. 

“But my perfect nurse objects to conversation, Dr. Karl,” the 
prince-colonel smiled affectionately. “And it has been.... ” 

“We’ll postpone all oratory on the subject,” Dr. von Westarf 




184 


TRAPPED 


answered, glancing at the chart. He took a vial from his pocket 
and gave it to Fraulein Elsa, who had also—apparently—dropped 
in. She was kneeling near the foot of the bed, feeling the feet of 
her patient. She took the vial and went to the table where the sick 
chart lay. The rigor of half a minute before, had been recorded. 
Under this she wrote, “Feet and legs cold , to knees.” Margery was 
setting down the temperature on a separate card, where its rise and 
fall could be instantly perceived by the fine red line waving across 
the paper. 

“A perfect nurse,” echoed Fraulein Elsa. “I wonder where she 
was trained. But nurses, like poets, are born, not made—so the 
school really doesn't matter. 

And the fraulein carefully filled a hypodermic with the anti¬ 
tetanus serum and gave it to Dr. von Westarf. 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

A Spy At the Front. 

The day Lord Carnes reached the French capital he was al¬ 
lowed an interview with the Chief of Staff. The day following the 
German's fell back from Paris. 

The next day the Germans retreated, and the next—and even the 
day after this. No rout, no disorderly retreat. Mile upon mile they 
were pressed back with the same hard fighting, and by many of the 
same men who had given way before them a few days before. The 
cry: “On to Paris!'' was changed to—“Hold the line.” Yet—the re¬ 
treat continued. 

The great battle of the Marne was turning—slowly in favor of 
the French. It was whispered that Joffre had lured the Germans on 
till they were almost caught between the cross-fire of his army and 
the Parisian forts. Other reasons were assigned by commanders, 
by newspapers, and by the general public. Those who knew, said 
nothing. 

When Lord Dalhousie congratulated Lord Carnes on his success 
he said simply; “If I had only been trusted sooner, I might have 
saved Europe this war.However, we have saved Paris.” His voice 
vibrated as he continued, “By early winter peace will be declared.” 

His face was beautiful with hope, as he went on: “This will be 
the last great war. It will prove the futility of fighting; Dal¬ 
housie, your reward will be the glory of being a witness before a 
sin-stained world. You said the battle of Armagedden must first 
be fought. It is being fought now.” His face darkened a moment. 
Then it brightened. 

“We are approaching the millennium. The Fatherhood of God 


TRAPPED 


185 

and the Brotherhood of man shall soon be established. I see it— 
just beyond the bloody battle field.” 

If Lord Dalhousie had spoken he would have remarked that he 
was glad somebody saw it, but that he did not. 

“The uttermost parts of the earth,” Carnes continued, “shall 
see a great light—and this time they will understand it—will realize 
the perfect love that casteth out hate as well as fear.” 

Lord Dalhousie had read every word of the great dailies, talked 
to a numiber of officers, and absorbed their opinions. He believed 
that Lord Carnes had nothing whatever to do with the German re¬ 
treat. But he could not dampen hi-s friend’s ardor by expressing his 
doubts. 

“You have a remarkable foundation upon which to build your pre¬ 
dictions,” he observed. “And when this bright hour dawns upon the 
world I shall be glad to appear as your witness. Though, as you know, 
I am not seeking—glory.” 

At midnight, in LaFenelle, at the headquarters in the Hotel de 
Ville, the German Chief of Staff and his officers stood around 
tables covered with maps. General von Meyers suddenly shook the 
table with a blow from his stout fist, and the air with a stout Ger¬ 
man oath. His officers tried not to look at each other, but to re¬ 
main imperturbably mlitary. Their consultation for the night was 
ended, but the general had detained them and sent for Major Zim¬ 
merman and Count von Janotha. 

“There is a spy close to us,” the general spit out in purple 
fury. “I don’t know whom to suspect, but the things we whisper 
to each other, are known in England. I hardly dare to admit that a 
point on our front is weak and must be strengthened; as before the 
order can be given or executed, the enemy attacks that point, and 
drives us back. There are either spies on the field or here with us. 
Touching Paris with our finger tips—and now—losing ground for the 
last four days. I almost go mad!” he roared. 

“It has been through no fault of ours,” Count von Janotha inter¬ 
posed coldly. “Your plans were magnificently conceived, and bril¬ 
liantly executed. As you say, though, the enemy has often chanced 
to hit our weak points.” 

“Our men have not lacked courage,” said Major Zimmerman. 
“The thousands buried in France prove their willingness to die for the 
Fatherland. Line after line were mowed down, but not a man falt¬ 
ered till the order came to fall back.” 

“Exactly so!” stormed the general. “There is no cause for the 
retreat—except spies! They have betrayed cur plans, and our vul¬ 
nerable points to the enemy. They know what we wish to do as well 
as what we are doing. It is the work of a spy here!” 

“How could a spy get in here?” asked Major Zimmerman. “All 
who enter this building are German born, and devoted to the cause. 


186 


TRAPPED 


We hold our consultations in this room, on an upper floor, behind 
guarded doors. In every corridor and on the stairs, are German 
soldiers. He would be a brave man among us who would dare to 
undertake such a job.” 

“Possibly some soldier from Lorraine of Alsace?” 

“They were sent East,” said Zimmerman briefly. “The spy 
might be a woman. The most adroit spies are women.” 

“The nurses sent into France are Prussians,” said Count von 
Janotha, “and these nursing Colonel Reintz were born in Berlin.” 

“He or she—a spy is in our midst!” reiterated von Meyer, pound¬ 
ing the table again, and must be found—and shot! Though a mem¬ 
ber of the royal family.” 

A queer silence followed this outburst. The officers again care¬ 
fully avoided the eyes of each other. Could a man doubt the loy¬ 
alty of a prince of the blood—the loyalty of the reigning house— 
that had everything at stake? 

The general turned to Major Zimmerman who was in command 
of the town. “Major, give orders for all Germans to be on the look¬ 
out, for spies, re-inforce your secret service system. Place an extra 
guard around this building. Change the pass word every night. 
We have important papers here....” 

They were startled by a faint noise at the door. Was it an 
inadvertent rattle—or was it a light knock? 

General von Meyer motioned to the officer standing nearest to 
the door. He sprang forward and instantly opened it. 

In the glare of the lght stood Margery, white and red and ut¬ 
terly confused. 

“What do you want?” the general shouted sternly. 


CHAPTER XLVII. 

A Smashed Bottle. 

The day following Colonel Reintz’s first hypodermic treatment 
for tetanus, Margery did not go on duty until twelve, midnight. She 
entered the consultation office a few minutes before twelve, and 
found it empty except for Fraulein Bertha. 

“Colonel Reintz passed a bad afternoon,” the fraulein volun¬ 
teered. “His fever is still high. Fraulein Rachel is resting. A large 
number of wounded were brought in this afternoon,” she added “and 
the surgeons—even Dr. VonWestarf—are at the stations or hospi¬ 
tals—I had all I wanted of that sort of thing before we left La 
Bellevue.” 

Margery shuddered. She knew what it all meant too. She was 
wondering why the wounded were sent back so far. She sat watch¬ 
ing the hands of the clock crawl towards twelve, and Bertha’s fat 


TRAPPED 


187 


fingers cut the pages of the novel she intended reading during the 
night. 

The door opened. The nurses looking up were surprised to see 
Fraulein Schmidt. iShe looked white and scared, and in a fluttering 
voice inquired for Dr. von Westarf. 

“He is at one of the hospitals,” replied Fraulein Bertha. 

“Get him on the telephone at once,” she ordered, sinking int« a 
chair. 

“Is... .the prince?” Margery hesitated. 

“No! That is not it.” 

“Is that Dr. von Westarf? Tell him it is urgent—to get here 
in two minutes.” 

Bertha delivered the message.” 

“He is coming at once,” she said as she replaced the receiver. 

Fraulein Rachel thumped the table with her nervous fingers, 
and Margery watched the clock. 

It was scant two minutes before Dr. von Westarf appeared at the 
door. FrauMn Rachel rose to meet him. 

“Prince Anton—?” he gasped. 

“He is—I hope doing very well.” 

The physician looked infinitely relieved. Then he turned sharp¬ 
ly on the nurse. 

“Why did you give me such a fright?” 

“A terrible thing has happened—and you had to know it at once. 
I had the box of anti-tetanus serum opened, and every bottle is broken I 
It must have occurred when the box was being carried to or from 
the train.” 

Margery and Bertha looked at each other with widening eyes. 
Dr. von Westarf looked concerned. 

“It is all gone?” he asked, his firm voice a bit shaky. 

“All!” Fraulein Rachel emphasized. 

“That small quantity that you have in your case is, then all we 
have. There is none nearer than Brussels. Dr. Baum told me this 
afternoon that the hospitals here were out, and I told him we could 
supply them. There is no use trying to get it here. I will telephone 
at once to Brussels.” 

“The trains are running so irregularly,” objected Fraulein 
Rachel, that you could not count certainly upon receiving it for three 
days. Then the tubes might be broken—again.” 

There was a brief pause. 

“We must have it before to-morrow night!” announced Fraulein. 

“Yes, if I have to go for it myself,” said Dr. von Westarf. 

“Indeed no!” cried the nurses in unison. “You cannot leave 
Colonel Reintz.” 

“We know no one here!” cried Fraulein Rachel despairingly. 
“The man who goes for this must be absolutely dependable. He must 
never take a drink—and know how to hold his tongue. We must know 


188 


TRAPPED 


that the city will not keep him one minute after he gets the medi¬ 
cine. The life of prince—Colonel Reintz.... ” she broke off hastily 
and hurled a question at the surgeon. “Where are you going to find 
this man?” 

“Why can’t a woman go?” asked Margery suddenly; and blushed 
as the three looked at her in surprise. 

“It is a hundred and fifty miles, and you would have to go by 
motor,” exclaimed Fraulein Rachel. 

“The person who goes will have to hold the medicine all the way 
back,” said Bertha. 

“It will be a hard trip,*' said Dr. von Westarf, his eyes on Mar¬ 
gery, “yet-” 

“I am strong” volunteered Margery. “I have just rested eight 
hours—and I would know just how urgent the haste and taking care 
of the serum.... ” 

“That is quite true,” interrupted the surgeon. 

After talking quite a deal concerning the journey, it was decided 
that Margery should go. 

“You will need credentials of every kind along the road—and in 
Brussels,” said Dr. von Westarf. He looked at Margery as if his 
better judgement was telling him that such a young—and pretty girl, 
should not undertake the journey alone. 

“In my Red Cross uniform I shall be perfectly safe,*' Margery 
replied quickly. 

“That is true!” he admitted slowly. “But we shall be obliged 
to wait until morning to get the necessary papers. We do not know 
where to find Major Zimmerman at this hour.” He glanced at the 
clock. 

“He came in not long ago to inquire about Colonel Reintz, said 
Bertha, “and while he was here General von Meyer sent for him.” 

The surgeon went to the window and looked out—and up. 

“There is a light still in—that room,” remarked the surgeon 
guardedly. “General von Meyer might also give you a card,” he 
added to Margery. “That would help—wonderfully, when you reach 
Brussels, or got beyond Major Zimmerman’s territory. If we are 
quick we might catch the general. Send a guard up for the papers, 
Fraulein, while I get off the telegrams.” 

“A guard could never be made to understand at this hour of the 
night,” Bertha interposed practically. “Fraulein Keblinger will 
have to sign the papers, too, most probably—since she can't have her 
photograph taken. If Fraulein Schmidt would take her up for the 
papers and make the necessary explanations....” 

“Yes, we two will go,” said Fraulein Rachel, “and!....” 

“Fraulein Bertha order a car, a small, swift motor—but I sha 1 ! 
have my own man drive her. He is stupid, but honest, and has 


TRAPPED 189 

children older than you, Fraulein Kehlinger. You will be safe with 
him.” 

The guards on every landing and hall challenged Fraulein Rachel 
and Margery, and but for their cards, and another Dr. von Westarf 
had given them marked urgent, they could never have reached the 
floor on which General von Meyer and his staff consulted. 

On reaching the door, while the last guard carried the cards 
beneath the hall light to examine them, “Fraulein Schimdt followed 
to explain their errand. Margery, excited 1 by the loss of time in 
being halted by so many guards, thought she would expediate matters 
by knocking at the door of the consultation apartments. She ex¬ 
pected it to be opened by an inner guard, to whom she could explain 
matters, so that all he would have to do when Fraulein Rachel re¬ 
turned with the cards, would be to glance at their credentials, and 
pass them at once to the general. 

The door being suddenly flung open by an officer of high rank; 
the flare of brilliant light in her face, the imposing group of 
angry officers looking indignantly at her, startled her so that for 
a moment she could not speak. That stern. “What do you want?’* 
transfixed her, blushing and guilty like a trapped child. 

“Fraulein Schmidt and the guard instantly came forward, begged 
pardon for the interruptpion, and explained the emergency that had 
developed in the little hospital downstairs, and what was wanted. 

The general and Major Zimmerman promptly promised the 
necessary papers would be sent to Colonel Reintz’s apartment by an 
officer, in whose presence Margery would sign. 

In the meantime Fraulein Bertha found it no small matter over 
the telephone to secure a suitable motor at one o’clock at night. She 
turned the job over to Dr. von Westarf; and he went himself to 
find one. 

It was nearly daylight before Fraulein Schmidt carrying an arm 
ful of pillows, and Dr. von Westarf the bag of papers, and 1 a box of 
food, accompanied Margery down the steps, and with many final in¬ 
structions to her and the chauffeur, shut her in the motor. 

As the auto sped down the unlighted street, and the physician 
and nurse turned to ascend the steps; an armored motor, that had 
been waiting around the corner, whirred unnoticed past them, follow¬ 
ing close behind Margery’s auto; and was swallowed up in the dark¬ 
ness of the night. 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 

The Count Re-appears at an Uncomfortable Junction. 


The drive was the most exciting event Margery had ever experi¬ 
enced. Nothing could have been more unexpected than speeding be- 


190 


TRAPPED 


fore the dawn in the enemy’s country, alone—except for a man whose 
name she had never heard until two minutes before she climbed into 
the car. She was in search of a serum to save the life of another 
man whose real name she did not—and probably never would—know. 

Fraulein Schmidt had packed pillows around her, and told her 
to sleep all she possibly could, on the way to Brussels. But the good 
fraulein had no conception of the speed with which the chauffeur 
would hurl his car through the night. They were off like a bomb 
in the air, it seemed to Margery. She suggested going not quite 
so fast until the sun rose. 

“This is the rate at which every one travels now,” replied Hans 
Huneke stolidly. “You must keep out of the way of those behind— 
or you will be rammed in the back.” 

Margery glanced out of the rear of the auto. Racing close be¬ 
hind was the shaded searchlight of another car. “Yes, Hans is 
right,” she thought “we have to go fast or we will be run down.” 
She closed her eyes and tried not to think of dangers before and be¬ 
hind—or the result of a tire suddenly bursting. Her eyes refused 
to remain closed. She saw herself mangled and still living—when 
she would so much prefer being dead. She fastened her eyes on the 
patch of light that danced, ignis fatuus like, in front of them, causing 
every shadow to appear a yawning abyss, down which they must 

plunge to inevitable destruction-Then they were safely past the 

abyss—but another yawned in its place. 

At the city limits they were halted. A sentry thrust his lantern 
into their auto demanding their destination and papers. It was a re¬ 
lief to stand still a second. Margery got her first real breath since 
leaving the Hotel de Ville while the papers were inspected. Then 
they were off again. 

“While the motor behind us is showing papers—can’t we go a 
little slower? asked the girl—“and then—hold at that rate? They 
will not deliberately run over us.” 

She glanced back as the guard flashed the lantern into the car 
behind. It showed two men, one in the uniform of an officer., Mar¬ 
gery had learned to observe quickly; but she could not see his face, 
because it was shaded by his helmet as he spoke to the sentry. But 
the pause was only momentary. Papers were not demanded. The 
officer and the soldier exchanged greetings—and the motor was 
again just behind them. 

The road was now rougher than the city streets, and the ap¬ 
parent chasms immediately in front of them more alarming. Now 
she could not comfort herself by saying: “There could not be an 
abyss in a city street, it is my imagination.” With aircrafts dropping 
bombs on roads as well as elsewhere, a great hole might be dug out 
by a shell anywhere along the way. It was a hair elevating pros- 



TRAPPED 


191 


pect to contemplate. So it was consoling to know there was an officer 
near to give aid—if he too were not killed. 

“Are you not afraid of mistaking—your way?” Margery asked 
between violent bumps. 

“I know this road as a horse does the path to pasture,” replied 
Hans Huneke confidently. “I could travel it without light the dark¬ 
est night.” 

“And Dr. von Westarf called him stupid,” thought Margery, to 
whom such knowledge seemed little less than inspiration. She felt 
suddenly encouraged. Hans knew what he was about. 

“I’ll get there all right, too,” he added, “unless one of these air¬ 
ships drops a bomb on us, or some one runs into me—or I run into 
some one.” 

Margery wished he had curtailed his remarks a little. 

When the next sentry halted them, his lantern showed pale and 
yellow in the growing haziness. A ghostly, all pervading grayness 
gave the trees and other objects that swept by them, like fleeting 
shadows—an uncanny half tone. In the east tiny scraps of red peep¬ 
ed through the gray—and silver, violet, crimson, changed to molten 
gold—and dawn had come. The chasm and the swaying patch of 
light in front of the car, disappeared together. Before them stretched 
the highway—not teeming with life, as Margery had pictured it— 
but almost empty. Gradually the pillows became comfortable, like 
tender arms around her, and she fell asleep. 

She was awakened, and almost thrown from her seat by the car 
stopping suddenly. She felt protests were utterly useless. The 
highway was now a mass of moving things. She was glad she had 
been awakened. She did not see how they possibly could avoid a 
collision, and she somehow wanted to know what killed her. It was 
a marvel to the girl how any of the vehicles avoided each other. 
Piles of wreckage, on either side of the road, pointed out the fact 
that they did not always pass without colliding. She wondered 
if it would be on her way to Brussels, or back to La Fenelle, that their 
auto would turn turtle. She remonstrated several times, but Hans 
answered that he was obeying the doctor’s orders, to go to Brussels 
and return as quickly as possible. He always added the encourag¬ 
ing assurance, “We have not been killed yet.” 

It occurred to Margery that diplomacy might win where com¬ 
mands could not. She glanced at her watch; it was six o’clock and 
could be time for Breakfast. She opened the box in which Fraulein 
had arranged a beautiful collation. On top were two cups, beside 
a thermos bottle of hot coffee. She lifted these out, letting Hans 
see the substantial food beneath. 

“We must stop to drink our coffee,” she observed. 

Hans instantly drew to one side of the road and put on the 


192 TRAPPED 

brakes. As Margery had shrewdly guessed, when she had finished 
Hans had only well begun. 

“I really can’t eat any more,” Margery remarked, “let’s exchange 
seats, while you finish the box.” 

Again Hans was obedient. When the exchange was made Mar¬ 
gery at once started the car. Hans divided his admiration between 
his ham sandwiches, and the skill with which a mere woman was 
guiding the auto. True, however, it was only moving twenty miles an 
hour. Hans was still munching contentedly when the next sentry 
halted them. 

As the soldier examined the papers, Margery glanced back to 
see if the officer in the other auto were still on the road. Her heart 
almost leaped out of her body, as she saw Count von Janotha seated 
in the motor that had been nosing behind them for two hours. She 
started the car so suddenly that Hans not only lost the remaining 
sandwiches not in his hand, but his balance. He barely saved him¬ 
self from being pitched out headlong. He gasped and implored 
Margery to stop, as she spurted out suddenly at fifty miles an hour. 
Such speed was all very well when he was at the wheel—but a 
woman! “Nein!” 

Margery’s first impulse was to get away. Then she slowed 
down a bit as her reason spoke. 

“I am frightened about nothing,” she assured herself. “Hun¬ 
dreds of vehicles are passing me, why should I think Count von Jan¬ 
otha is following me? Yet I wish it were any one else in the world— 
trailing there behind me.” 

When Hans finished his last crumb and exchanged seats with 
her, she no longer insisted upon a reduction of speed, though they 
were passing a seemingly endless procession of cannon. The fat 
horses trotted spiritedly, while the soldiers on the cassons ate their 
early breakfast—and sang. She wondered if it were because Ger¬ 
many was winning—or if they were trying to brighten their task. 

“If they knew all I know!” she sighed. “But it would probably 
be the same. Boys are absolutely unreasoning when it comes to war. 
They volunteer without thought.” Margery was rapidly coming to 
believe nothing was worse than war. 

Hans had, suddenly, to reduce his speed and take the side of the 
road. Regiment after regiment was marching past them on the way 
to the front. As she noted the faces of the men in the endless tiers 
she was surprised at their extreme youth. The hearts of German 
mothers were also aching! The ranks, though, were quite stolid, 
stupid, as she compared them with the French. In their columns 
every soldier was vivacious, full of elan, and the hope of becoming 
an officer. 

“These are marching to the slaughter ‘Like dumb, driven cattle,’ ” 
thought the girl “Yet the upper classes are not dull.” 


TRAPPED 


193 


A&ain they were stopped to show their papers. The girl was 
startled by a hearty call from behind. 

“You’ve led me a merry chase, but I’ve caught you at last? 
Fortunately pretty girls are scarce along this road, so you were easi¬ 
ly followed, though your machine is faster than mine. I’ve punctured 
a tire. May I make the rest of the journey with you?” The count’s 
red moustaches were grinning at the side of her car. 

“Certainly not!’’ Margery snatched her credentials from the 
guard, “my business is urgent and we can carry no more weight than 
is absolutely necessary.” She nodded to Hans, and without waiting 
for a reply her car shot forward. 

Margery glanced back. In spite of his claim to a collapsed tire, 
the count sprang into his motor and sped after her so swiftly she 
saw his statement was utterly false. She piled the pillows behind 
her head so that he could not see her. Now and then she peeped be¬ 
tween them, and was further agitated by the knowledge that the 
dark-green motor was still behind them. Often far behind, but the 
distance was lost when she was compelled to stop and show her 
papers. It seemed to the girl that they wasted more time exhibiting 
credentials than they spent on their journey. The dark-green motor 
was barely halted for a nod at the sentry. 

“He is not following me,” she at last decided. “He is merely 
going the same route and wants to converse and tease,—possibly be 
impertinent. He is on some military errand, of course, for though his 
wound is nearly healed, this is not a pleasure trip even for a well man. 
I am flattering myself, to think he could be tagging after me. I’m 
an idiot to think about him at all. 

They were speeding now through a French village, quaint and 
quiet. Women and children sat silent on doorsteps, or stood in groups, 
with haunted, uneasy expressions on their erst-whiile piquant faces. 

Then, they were out again, passing through fields where 
aged peasants were at work, with their heads bowed. They never 
lifted their eyes to the crowded road. They had no interest in what 
was happening around them, or else were absorbed in gloomy thought. 

The arrival of the enemy had been too recent for their adjust¬ 
ment. Margery’s mind went back to the peasants at the juncton who 
had so kindly assisted them, and she wondered how they had fared 
at the hands of the enemy. They flashed through other villages and 
fields, populated with the same sad faces and silent depression. 

They shot across the border in Belgium—striken, sacrificed 
Belgium. 

Evidences of the fierce conflict before the brave home-defenders 
withdrew—to take another stand against the on-coming Huns, were 
all around. (She remembered the country as green, and a bee hive of 
industry. Now she was in the heart of nothing but devastation. 
They passed fields where no peasants were busy. Great chasms had 


194 


TRAPPED 


been dug by the explosion of enormous shells, or the grain had been 
trampled by passing armies. They bumped through a village that 
had been utterly burned. The next, and the next, were mere ruins. 
Ruin everywhere now met them—ruin that she could not have con¬ 
ceived unless she had seen it. Her heart ached for the simple, help¬ 
less folk, the homes that had been in the pathway of this giant de¬ 
struction. 

She recalled a moving picture of Dante’s Inferno. In it was no 
hideous desolation that compared with the grim work of the Teutons. 

“This will remain a blackened monument to the stupendous wick¬ 
edness of the Vandal-Germans, who, boasting of their Kultur, have 
dealt only violence, and 1 cruelty.” 

She longed to express what she was feeling, but she could not talk 
to Hans. She wondered, reverently, if even the creator could undo 
the great moral as well as material wrong done the Belgians, who 
had only tried to exercise the God-given right to defend their own. 

“Has Germany—calling herself Christian—done unto others as 
she would have them do to her?” she asked herself. “If France and 
Russia were at war, would Germany allow either to march through 
her territory to fight the other? Belgium only did what Holland and 
Switzerland are doing now,” the girl’s’ thought ran on, as they whiz¬ 
zed past another village in ruins. “Yes, Mr. Holt is right. The 
Allies are fighting for the freedom of the whole world. And they 
must continue to fight until the question of neutrals having rights, 
international laws being observed, and treaties not mere scraps of 
paper, is settled for all time. These charred remains of homes and 
towns, are the merest visible sings of anguish that cannot be put into 
words. A crime like this against Belgium must never be allowed 
again while the world lasts! Never again. Never again.” 

It was with infinite relief that Margery saw the spires of Brus¬ 
sels come into view over the tree tops, and a turn in the road brought 
them into the city. They drove at once to the best restaurant, as 
Fraulein Schmidt had advised. For as Margery phased it in Eng¬ 
lish term®, they intended getting “a good feed” before starting back. 

In spite of her reasoning, Margery entertained doubts about 
Count von Janotha. Knowing he might appear at any moment she 
felt afraid to trust the auto alone while she lunched in the restaurant. 
She promised Hans a big tip, besides his dinner, and a fine lunch to 
eat on the way home, if he would not leave the car while she was gone. 


TRAPPED 


195 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

Two Officers Seem Impertinent. 

Hans waited in the auto with an appetite that increased moment¬ 
ly by arithmetical progression. The sight of man after man as¬ 
cending the steps from the portion of the restaurant where Hans 
would get his dinner, could have been borne better, if he had not seen 
each customer wiping his mouth—sometimes with his red paw, or 
others, more daintily, with a blue handkerchief—evincing the peculiar 
satisfaction of the male with a well-filled stomach. This nearly 
drove Hans frantic. The big tip lost its influence, but he remember¬ 
ed his own daughter in far Bavaria, of whom Dr. von Westarf had 
reminded him, when he trusted Margery to his care. Nothing short of 
a command from the Kaiser could have pried him from the driving 
wheel of that auto until Margery appeared. 

Presently she came down the steps from the upper restaurant, 
carrying a heavily loaded box-basket in her hands. Instantly Hans 
was upon the pavement; he relieved her of the burden and packed 
it away, before he helped her into the seat he had just vacated. 

“You can have an hour for your dinner, Hans,” Margery promised 
him, “But don’t keep me waiting one second after that time. Sixty 
minutes only!” 

Hans promised volubly and thanked her for the money she put 
into his hand. He disappeared almost at a leap down the stairs into 
the restaurant. 

Margery remembered Brussels very well. She had been there 
with her mother. She had no trouble in driving to the address given 
her by Dr. von Westarf. She delivered his note and waited in the 
auto. In a moment the owner of the establishment came out bowing 
and smiling, followed by two men each carrying a box. 

“I know, I know” were his first words, “Herr Doctor telegraphed 
last night, and telephoned this morning. This,” pointing to one box” 
is for the hospital, and this for emergency,” he indicated the other 
box, “and this is for Herr Doctor.” He gave Margery a small pack¬ 
age, wrapped most carefully. 

“Thank you,” replied Margery, returning his cordial smile. “Now 
just a little more cord-” 

“Ja—but I tied it up myself,” he protested. 

Margery rolled the small package he had given her in one of the 
pillows. “You do not know at what break neck speed we travel. . If 
we run into some one, or some one runs into us, it might be broken. ’ 

One of the men handed her a ball of string, and she tied the pil¬ 
low securely. Then she fastened a shawl strap, she had brought for 
this purpose, around the pillow. 

“Now—I shall carry this in my lap, and if I reach La Fenelle 


196 


TRAPPED 


safely, it will be safe. If I am killed, it may still escape, and 1 — out 
patient be saved.” 

“Ja! But it is a large bundle for you to carry so far.” 

“Not for a Red Cross nurse,” laughed Margery. 

iShe drove back for Hans. Glancing at her watch, she saw she 
could not expect him for a few minutes. She moved into her own 
seat, and waited, watching the steps where Hans should appear. 
She felt satisfied with her enterprise. So far all had gone well. If 
Hans only came promptly they could be leaving on time. 

Two officers, whose uniforms indicated high rank, sauntered 
down the street towards Margery’s car. As they approached they 
glanced at her. The face of one of them brightened, he quickened 
his pace and touched his helmet. Margery lowered her eyes instant¬ 
ly, but she could see the officer hesitate, in apparent surprise, before 
catching step with his companion, with a murmured remark. Margery 
knew it was about her. A Red Cross nurse is always interesting in 
time of war, and doubly so when waiting in an automobile with a 
crest on it. 

“I wonder if that officer mistook me for some one he knows? 
Someone who might belong to the crest on this motor. In uniforms 
all nurses look alike.” She mused. 

Han’s hour was up, and' Margery leaned out impatiently to see 
if he were coming. She looked straight into the face of another 
officer, who was gazing at her in astonishment. As their eyes met, 
he lifted his helmet and started toward her with an outstretched 
hand. She shrank back quickly into the car, almost concealing her¬ 
self. Fraulein Schmidt had assured her that as long as she was in 
the auto, its coat of arms would protect her. She was irritated that 
officers dared tip their hats and attempt a flirtation. 

She waited some minutes quietly for Hans. Her watch marked 
five minutes past the hour. Again she leaned out to see if Hans were 
coming. A third officer, passing, smiled, and took his helmet off 
with a sweep. It occurred to Margery that it might be the same 
man—and that he might in some way be connected with the count. 
Yet her first impression was that three different officers had spoken 
to her, with the intention of following it up with conversation. It 
was certainly annoying. She drew back in the car as far as possible, 
and kept there, telling herself, that looking for Hans would not 
bring him one moment sooner. 

Twenty minutes passed. It seemed an eternity to the girl. But 
there was nothing that she could do. She dared not leave the auto. 
Something might happen to the serum package. Besides, if officers 
were so familiar when she was within the protection of the coat of 
arms, what might happen if she alighted Then too, a woman alone 
could not enter a man’s eating place in search of a tardy chauffeur. 


TRAPPED 197 

A sense almost of relief thrilled her as she heard Count von Janotha’s 
voice call out sarcastically: 

“For one in such haste you seem to be wasting very precious 
moments now.” 

“It is true,” she replied with a faint smile. He might help her. 
“For of course he knows who Colonel Reintz really is,” she thought. 
“We should be returning now—Colonel Reintz needs the medicine I 
have come after; but the chauffeur has evidently forgotten the hour 
—and I am obliged to wait for him.” 

“I shall take pleasure in looking him up for you,” the count said 
gallantly; but as he spoke, Hans came up the steps. He had a very 
suspicious looking bundle under his arm, and was wiping his mouth 
with the satisfied air he had so envied a short while before. Dr. von 
Westarf had furnished the money to pay the bill, so he had eaten a 
double dinner. All the blood his circulation could spare was engaged 
in the deii^htful occupation of aiding digestion. If he could have 
lain down and taken a nap, life would have been a poem. He made 
his bundle secure in the auto, while Margery thanked the count. 

“I am just as grateful as if you had found him,” and Margery 
really smiled over the door at the red-moustached officer. She 
nodded to Hans, and in a moment the motor was speeding down the 
street on the way back to La Fenelle. 

Count von Janotha stood watching the car as it rapidly disap¬ 
peared. “If she is a princess—as her grande dame manner implies— 
I have possibly made a friend at court. If she is not, I have made 
a d.... fool of myself, not driving her back instead of waiting for 
her chauffeur.” 

He sprang into his own motor, and drove out of town in a direc¬ 
tion opposite to that taken by Margery. 

That evening Lord Carnes sent a telegram to Lady Florence, 
telling her that Margery was in the greatest possible danger. 


CHAPTER L. 

Margery’s Drive Becomes an Adventure. 

As Hans whirled around a corner, near the center of Brussels, a 
tire blew out. They had started twenty-five minutes late, and now 
more valuable time had to be lost, at the garage. 

“Lucky this occurred in the city, and not on the road,” said one of 
the workmen, as he began taking down the extra tire. 

“Not that one,” objected Margery. “We may need that, on the 
way. Fill the tank with gasoline, while I telegraph.” 

She got out and sent a wire to Dr. von Westarf, so that he would 
not be anxious at her delay. On her return, as she stood waiting, 


198 


TRAPPED 


she noticed a boy and a girl of seven or eight, gazing longingly at the 
.sweets in the window of a near-by shop. Margery loved children, 
and thinking to make them happy by buying them some of the cakes 
so temptingly displayed, she joined them and said smilingly, “They 
look good, don’t they?” 

Had she been a viper they could hardly have shrunk from her 
more quickly or with greater hostility. 

“Don’t answer the German!” commanded the boy vehemently, 
as he drew his sister away and looked fiercely at Margery. 

“Do you fear the Germans?” asked Margery kindly, and too 
surprised to deny being one. 

“No, we do not fear them, we hate them!” declared the girl over 
shoulder, her voice ringing with scorn. And hand in haid they walked 
proudly down the street. 

“Lieutenant Guyot is right,” thought Margery, “Germany has 
lost Belgium forever.” 

When they took the road again they were nearly an hour late. 
Clouds threatened, and a cold wind was blowing. Margery snuggled 
down in the long cloak that Bertha had lent her. She stuffed pil¬ 
lows behind her back, and settled herself to hold the strap handle of 
the precious package. Hans sounded his horn, warning the earth 
out of his way, and plunged into the heterogeneous mass upon the 
highway. As they bumped back through the devastated country it 
looked ever more desolate than it had in the morning. Rain drizzled. 
The sun instead of setting, faded gloomily. The branchless trees— 
ghostly sentinels on either side of the road—held up their skeleton 
fingers, in the shadowy light, telling the world: “War has passed 
this way.” The girl shivered as she glanced out over the fleeing 
scene of misery. Even the few lamps that now occasionally passed, 
looked ghastly—as if they were afriaid to shine in the pallid afternoon 
grayness. The air seemed weighted with forebodings. The drizzle 
changed to a downpour, and they were obliged to go more slowly. 
They passed regiment after regiment, who with their helmets bowed to 
the rain and wind, marched steadily on. They edged past squadrons of 
cavalry, the horses side-stepped and their coats glistened in the rain. 
They passed batteries of artillery, the cannon and caisons rumbling 
in and out of the holes cut by the wheels of those whom they passed in 
the morning with the drivers singing. Innumerable armored motors, 
filled with officers, dashed madly past, seemingly fired only with a 
thought of reaching their destination quickly. As night came on, 
whether Margery looked forward or through the rear windows, she 
saw the shaded lamps of other cars. She felt they were going faster 
than was prudent, but knew it was useless to protest. The thumping 
of her own car, thie whirring of others, the constant honking of all, 
the clatter of horses hoofs, the heavy rumble of cannon wheels, and the 
rain, pelting on the windows and roof of her auto, caused ai terrible 
din. The girl’s head ached, and her arms and fingers cramped with 


TRAPPED 


199 


holding her huge bundle. Yet she dared not loosen her grip on the 
package. Her pride as a nurse, as well as her interest in the hand¬ 
some young prince, were in the matter. 

“I believe he is the son of one of the kings in Germany—if not 
of the Kaiser himself,” she thought; “why else would he be so impor¬ 
tant? Which prince could he be?” 

In an effort to recall how many kings there were in Germany, 
and the names of their sons, she almost fell asleep. A sudden lurch 
threw her against the side of the car and hurt her fingers painfully, 
but she did not relax her hold on her treasured pillow. She was wide 
awake again, and as she bumped about, she recalled where she was— 
and how far away from LaBellevue. Then she remembered she had 
not heard from Dr. Mason since she left Reaux. “Gay, fun-loving, Dr. 
Mason. I hope he is improving.” She did not dream that his sense 
of humor and Miss Andrew’s “putting it over the Germans”, were 
responsible for her present position. 

“I must write to-morrow and ask,” she thought. “I wish I could 
have nutsed him. I am so tired! I shouldn’t have had to take this 
drive,” she nodded sleepily; hut this thought roused her. “I did not 
have to take it—I offered to take it. The Germans have been as kind 
to me as the French or Belgians....” 

Again she felt herself falling asleep. She shook herself awake, 
and sat firmly with her feet against the securely fastened box on the 
floor of the auto. Unknown to her, Hans was also perilously near 
napping. Her head was again beginning to sink into the pillows at 
her back, when the vehicle preceding them suddenly stopped; and be¬ 
fore Hans could put on his brakes, there was a crash and shiver of 
glass. They had struck the automobile in front of them. 

Almost without thought, Margery, with her precious bundle, 
sprang into the muddy road. In her effort to get safely out of the 
way of some oncoming motor, which might ram them from the rear, 
she plunged ankle-deep in the water of the ditch which edged the road 
side. She saw a sentry box near, and the guard with his lantern 
standing in the door of it. Then she discovered that the sudden 
stoppage of the car in front of them was only part of a general ces¬ 
sation of vehicles. As far as she could see ahead, stretched a con¬ 
gestion of wagons and motors. She knew they would begin to ac¬ 
cumulate behind her car in a few minutes. Through the semi dark¬ 
ness she observed that the wind-shield and windows of her car had 
been shattered, and the rain was pouring in. She could not tell what 
other damage had been done. iShe lost one of her slippers in the 
muddy ditch, but did not stop to find it, as she hurried to the sentry 
to discover the cause of the blockade. He invited her to step inside 
the box; and explained that a bridge about a mile down the road had 
been destroyed by the retreating enemy. The sudden heavy rain had 


200 


TRAPPED 


swollen the river, and it was impossible for machines to cross before 
morning’. 

“I must go to-night,” Margery declared, and explained her mis¬ 
sion. 

The guard promised to do his best for her; and as Hans—full of 
confusion—had followed her, he was sent in search of horses. The 
guard elevated the blaze of the tiny oil stove, and offered her the 
stool in front of it, saying: 

“You can keep dry in here. Under the circumstances I must 
stand outside.” 

Margery took her seat on the stool and held first one wet foot 
and then the other to the stove, which partially lighted as well as 
heated the room. She was wishing she had made Hans find her 
other shoe before starting after the horses, when to her utter sur¬ 
prise Prince Mavalanka entered and greeted her in a voice shaking 
with agitation. Margery was at such a pitch of high tension herself, 
that his excitement did not arrest her. She was simply amazed at 
seeing him at all. She rose and offered him her stool. 

“Have you met with an accident?” she asked. 

With a courtly gesture he declined the seat. 

“I have only stopped a moment to speak to you.” He paused, 
holding his shapely hands over the stove, and his eyes pierced those 
of the girl’s. Before she could speak he continued reproachfully, 
“My child, my child, you have forgotten to tell that you are English.” 

Margery stood dumb, not knowing what to say. 

“I know you think it useless,” he continued, his voice thrilling 
her with its earnestness, though his smile warmed her, “But indeed 
you are mistaken. It is a vital question to you—and to others. It 
is far more important than you can possibly imagine. As soon as you 
reach the Hotel de Ville you must tell them, that you are English, 
and ask to be sent through the lines at once. Promise me that you 
will do this—if only to relieve the mind of an unhappy old man who 
cannot sleep calmly for thinking that you have failed to obey him.” 

“Oh, I am so sorry that I did not keep my promise,” cried Mar¬ 
gery, hardly knowing how to explain her omission to this man who 
seemed to know, by merely looking at her, what she was thinking. “I 
at least could have saved you this stop—in the rain—to speak to 
me. “I will tell them. I will tell Fraulein Schmidt to-night if I 
get there,” she smiled apologetically at the prince. 

“My child I hope that you will do it! You must do it!” he de¬ 
clared impressively. “It will give me the greatest possible happiness 
to know that you have done it,” he added earnestly, turning toward 
the door. 

“Indeed I will. Are—you going to La Fenelle—to-night?” asked 
Margery. She hoped he had a vehicle with sufficiently high wheels 


TRAPPED 


201 


to ford the river. She felt if he knew how necessary it was for her to 
reach La Fenelle he would offer to take her. 

“No,” he said regretfully, “I am going—in—another direction, 
but I hope you will reach La Fenelle safely and—in time!” the flash 
of intimocy in his smile made her feel he knew all about her mission. 
As Margery stood holding the door open for him, he bade her a stately 
farewell, and majestically blessed her in an unknown tongue. 

The girl awed by his impressive manner, stood wondering, as 
she closed the door: “How did he know I was here? Or—that I had 
not told that I was English? Are there spies watching me, and does 
he know it?” 

She peeped out. The rain was still falling, though not so heavily. 
The guard stood waving his lantern. A touring car was just moving 
off, and a motor was approaching the sentry. She did not see the 
prince, but felt sure he was in the large automobile. 

She hopped back to her stool and waited. Hans suddenly stuck 
his wet face and the top of his dripping hat within the odor, and an¬ 
nounced that he could not get horses. Before the girl could bid him 
try again on the other side of the road, he shut the door and hurried 
away to the water-soaked auto. Margery saw him drawing his sus¬ 
picious looking bundle from beneath the seat. She called to him, 
but her voice seemed lost in the darkness. 

Hans found his beer uninjured. Every cell in his stomach as 
well as his dry throat cried aloud that this was the moment for such 
enjoyment. 

Margery went back into the sentry box, unbound her pillow, and 
found her tubes of anti-tetanus serum intact. She carefully bound 
them up again. Of what benefit were all her efforts, if she could 
not reach La Fenelle that night? She sat down on the stool to think. 
What could be done? Her energetic mind would not rest. 

The splashing thump of horses feet on the muddy road rose sharp¬ 
ly above the other noises. The sound stopped abruptly, and a jolly 
voice called: 

“Hel-lo! What’s up?” 

She recognized the intontations. They were identically those 
that beneath her window at La Bellevue had retorted some American 
slang, which she could not recall. 

The next instant she was in the rain screaming—“Randolph 
Thornton! Please come here! Lieutenant Thornton—please help 
me!” 

Probably never before in his short, but adventurous life, had 
Randolph Thornton been more amazed than when he heard his name 
called out, and turning, faced a beautiful girl, in a long coat, with 
wind-swept hair—standing curiously, like a stork on one leg, holding 
a big white bundle in one hand, and waving the other frantically to¬ 
wards him. 

“Lieutenant Randolph Thornton please! Please-’’ 


202 


TRAPPED 


He splashed through the mud—followed closely by the two Ger¬ 
mans with him, and flung himself off his horse at the box, where 
Margery now stood. 

He lifted his cap. “What can I do for you?” But his eyes told 
his amazement and his admiration. 

“I am sure you will find a way to get me to La Fenelle to-night— 
before ten o’clock; gasped Margery. “It’s only five miles beyond 
the river.” 

Thornton’s eyes traveled over the nurse’s uniform, the large 
bundle she held so carefully— and guessed something of the situa¬ 
tion. 

“I shall do everything I possibly can,” he promised gravely. 

The German troupers swept him aside and demanded Margery’s 
papers. While they examined them they joined the sentry to confer. 

“How did you know my name?” cried Thornton, the moment they 
were alone. 

“I’ve known and—liked you—a long time,” Margery smiled dazz- 
ingly in his eyes. “Ever since you talked to Lieutenant Persuis and 
Count von Janotha under my window at La Bellevue—in the garden, 
you remember?” 

“Gee!” he chuckled, “I hope I said nothing—raw.” 

“I just know you are going to help me to get back to-night,” 
begged Margery. “Americans can do anything, you know”. 

“Say! It’s fine to hear that. This American is a little tied up 
just now. You see I am not twenty-one, and my father pled the 
‘baby act’ to get me home to friends and country, because I’ve lost a 
foot. Since I can be no more use to the French army, and am only 
here for the German government to feed, the petition was favorably 
acted upon. They’ve treated me white,” he concluded. They’ve al¬ 
lowed me to buy back my horse, and these two gentlemen, on their 
way to the front, are also my escort of honor, to the frontier. But 
in this French uniform, I can’t wander about by my lonesome. I am 
determined to take the uniform back to the United States, so the boys 
wont think I lost my pied in a cricket scrimmage.” He was watching 
the Germans shrewdly as he talked. They had gone through the 
papers. “My horse is perfectly safe,” he said in a louder tone, 
“and I can take you behind me.” 

“You can’t possibly do that,” said the guard quickly. “Last re¬ 
ports are that the river is so high you would have to swim your horse, 
and the current is too swift for a double load.” 

“But I must go—even....” Margery looked appealingly at each 
of the Germans who now approached with her papers—“if one of you 
gives me his horse, and comes on to-morrow in my auto.” 

The importance of her mission had soaked into the heads of the 
Germans, from the examination of her papers. After more discussion, 
they decided that with Randolph as her escort, Margery should ride 


TRAPPED 


203 


the horse of one of the soldiers, while the other, with the lantern, 
rode ahead to show them the way. 

Margery was an inexperienced rider. Her heart sank at the 
thought of swimming a horse.” But she said nothing, and busied her¬ 
self strapping her bundle to her shoulders. Thornton insisted on re¬ 
lieving her of it, but she refused. 

“You will have a handful, taking care of me.” 

Thornton laughed, but he did not feel like laughing. Before he 
lost his foot he was an expert horseman. He could leap to his saddle 
from the ground, and do other “circus stunts.” Now with his lame¬ 
ness, and his body weak from detention in the hospital, the responsi¬ 
bility of leading another horse through a raging river was no fun, as 
fond as he was of finding jokes. But with the trusting eyes of this 
lovely girl on him, he would have drowned before he would have 
winced in the presence of difficulties. He helped Margery secure the 
burden she would not give him, assuring her he could “put it across 
all right.” 

When they reached the river, it was black and forbidding, the 
roar rising ominously. 

“You are sure you can keep your seat?” Thornton said briskly, 
to conceal his anxiety. 

“Can’t I hold to the saddle?” parried the girl. 

Randolph’s heart sand at the answer. 

“No indeed, you must not hold to the saddle,’’ he declared posi¬ 
tively. “Take off your gloves, and twist your fingers in the horses 
mane—like this.” He caught her hand and showed her how to do it. 
“I will take your bridle.... ” 

But the soldier protested. “Fasten the bridle to her saddle,” he 
said, snapping the catch as he spoke.. “That horse will follow mine, 
to kingdom come. If she can keep on his back, she can cross all 
right.” 

He plunged down the bank with the other two after him. 

Margery had never ridden astride before, but she instinctively 
held on with her feet as well as her hands. As they entered the river 
and the cold water crept up—and up—she gritted her teeth in order 
to keep from screaming, for the icy water shocked every nerve in her 
body, and when she was able to think,she found herself repeating like 
an incantation: “Twist your fingers in your horse’s mane! Twist 
your fingers in your horse’s mane!” 

An hour later, wet, bedraggled, stiff, half-frozen, and entirely 
exhausted, Margery was assisted to the pavement in front of the Hotel 
de Ville by her escorts. Dr. von Westarf was at the entrance, evi¬ 
dently anxiously on the watch for her. 

Thornton unstrapped her curious burden and explained the situa¬ 
tion at the same time, in good German, to the astounded surgeon. 

“I hope we shall meet again,” said Thornton, cordially pressing 
Margery’s wet cramped hand, “under fairer skies!” 


204 


TRAPPED 


Before she could more than stammer out thanks, he cut her off 
with protests of pleasure at being able to serve her, and dashed off 
with his German escort. 

Dr. von Westarf, received the precious bundle, and thanked Mar¬ 
gery as he assisted her up the steps. 

“You are back on time!” he said enthusiastically, “if Colonel 
Reintz recovers, he will, in a large measure, owe it—to you.” Then 
a very human look, of high approval, subtly touched with something 
warmer, softened his eyes! 


CHAPTER LI. 

Amos Fulfills His Vow. 

While Margery was speeding from Brussels with the serum to 
save the life of an enemy; not so very far away, Captain Dallas Hope 
and Lieutenant Amos Russell were holding a bit of the front gained 
that morning by a fierce attack. The line of battle had swayed, but 
at last the English had pushed the Germans back until the sound of 
the guns could be heard in La Fenelle. 

“By night we will have a big bite out of them—several miles,” 
thought Hope triumphantly. 

“God has held me safe so far,” thought Russell reverently, glanc¬ 
ing at the Captain of his company, who was covered with grime and 
mud, but whose face flashed exultantly. 

Since daylight they had fought without food, and they were still 
pressing forward, when, suddenly out of nowhere—came a rain of 
shot, mowing the men down like grain. 

After the barrage, the shell-fire lessened. In the distance a 
regiment of cavalry dashed over a hill. The Teutons were deter¬ 
mined to lose thousands of men—if need be—to win back the “bite” 
the English had taken. Lieutenant Russell was behind the trunk of 
what had been an enormous oak. 

He saw Captain Hope fall, as a stray shot burst near him. For 
Hope to remain where he had fallen meant death—if not from the 
shell fire, then later from the on-coming horses’ feet. 

A whirlwind of sensations filmed themselves on Russell’s brain, 
with no conscious thought on his part. If Hope did not rise again. 
Loring would be Captain, and Amos—already with a record for 
courage—next in command. If Hope were killed, and because only 
a memory to Margery, Amos might—win her! 

The supreme moment had come to Amos Russell—the test! 
Would he keep his oath? 

Yet, it was not a test—at least he had no sense of his will, of 
deliberate volition. The moment seemed to throw its violent pos¬ 
sibilities before him—and, to demand action. As he grasped the scene 


TRAPPED 


205 


and all it staged, the springs of being in him acted—moral or men¬ 
tal reflex action perhaps—with no determining choice, or decision, on 
his part. 

He would keep his oath. 

Instantly he was by Dallas, lifting him, carrying him back to 
the protection of the tree. 

“Don’t worry about me. Cut, old boy!” Dallas murmured. 

Russell did not heed him. He placed his Captain gently against 
the tree, at an angle which sheltered him from the enemy. 

“The boys are retreating,” gurgled Dallas shakily, “go on— 
leave me, I—I’ll do— very well—” His head drooped, and he fainted. 

For one second Amos, half-crouched, motionless over him. 

He had done it! He had kept his oath. He had proven himself 
to Margery! The blot on his courage was wiped out.. Hundreds of 
times, in imagination, he had lived this glorious minute. Now it was 
his. His boyish pride exulted. 

He rejoiced that he had been strong enough to refuse the friend¬ 
ship of Hope and to under-go the humiliation of “taking orders” from 
him. Often each had been hard to do. In a flash of memory, he now 
recalled how many times he had reminded himself; “I have solemnly 
sworn to have no friendly intercourse with Captain Hope; but if I 
have the chance, I will save his life, for her. Then as long as she 
lives, she must remember that she is indebted 1 for her lover-husband 
to Amos Russell. In that way I shall live always in her memory! 
She will confess that I am not a slacker, more—she will be grateful 
to me—admire me! And I shall respect myself and perform my 
work in the X. Y. Z. office as I could never have done while this 
stain remained upon my name. It is the only way!” 

Again and again, since coming to the front, Amos had nursed 
these thoughts; and now they had become a reality. For a second the 
exultation blotted out even the need of the wounded man. Everyone 
would be able to testify that he cared nothing for Dallas Hope. 
“When she hears that, she will understand why I did it.” A warm 
glow filled Russell’s heart. 

While all this sped through his mind in a pause that was a mere 
split moment, Amos with cool fingers was unfastening Hope’s collar. 
The locket on its slender platinum chain was revealed. He deliber¬ 
ately touched the spring—and the beautiful face of the girl he loved 
smiled up at him. He closed it quickly. His lips were as bloodless 
as those of Dallas Hope. 

“I will save him for her.” 

Keeping Dallas carefully within the protection of the oak, Amos 
laid him flat, and forced a few drops from his canteen between 
Hope’s lips. Then he attended the wounds. 

When Dallas Hope regained consciousness, his broken leg lay 
straight, and Amos was raising and easing him with gentle and skill- 


206 TRAPPED 

ful touches. One arm was also wounded. Russell deftly rendered 
what first aid was possible. 

“Are you a boy scout, old man?” Dallas groaned. 

Amos poured a little more liquor between Hope’s white lips, for 
reply. There was blood oozing from the broken ankle. After cut¬ 
ting the trouser leg Amos drew a roll of gauze from his pocket, and 
bound it tightly on the wound. The flow of blood lessened. 

“Are you better now, till-” 

“Yes, yes, you’ve mended me first rate. Now look out for 
yourself and my men. I think you’ll have to take command. If 
you stay here you’ll be captured-and any man’d rather.... ” 

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Russell, rising at once. “I know 
old fellow.” 

He placed his canteen in Hope’s good hand—and was gone. 


CHAPTER LII. 

The Iron Cross and the Wounded Soldier. 

Margery slept late the next morning, and though a little stiff, 
felt less fatigue than she had expected. She was nearly dressed 
when Fraulein Schimdt tiptoed softly into the room, and expressed 
surprise to find her already making her toilette. 

“How is Colonel Reintz?” Margery at once inquired. 

“Very much better,” replied the fraulein brightly. “Dr. von 
Westarf told him of your long ride and he is deeply grateful. You 
would be the vainest thing alive if you could hear all the beautiful 
things they are saying concerning you....” 

“Then do not tell me,” interrupted Margery smiling, “for I think 
vanity the most detestable thing on earth.” 

Aeons have certainly passed since Margery kissed her reflection 
in the mirror! 

The fraulein’s sense of humor was limited. She looked inex¬ 
pressibly shocked at Margery’s reception of a compliment from so 
high a source; but as Margery lifted her bronze lashes with her inim¬ 
itable arch smile,—Fraulein was appeased. 

“I used to be vain, Fraulein,”—she said, in a wise little voice,— 
“not so long ago either. Since I have been nursing I have tried to be 
useful—but I don’t want to grow proud of my nursing either. This 
war has taught me the joy of serving others. Nothing else gives 
the perfectly estactic feeling right here,” she touched her heart, “as 
that which comes from knowing you are of some little use in the 
world.” 

You are right,” agreed Fraulein Rachel, “I remember when a 
child hearing our good emperor say the same thing. You know he 
only lives to help his people to higher and better things. He feels 


TRAPPED 


207 


his position is a sacred trust placed in his hands, not by man, but by 
God himself. You are too young to remember, but for years I have 
been observing the change in Germany from good to better, and—now 
the best. No father was ever more thoughtfll or tenderer to his 
children, than the Kaiser to his people. 

“Do you know him?” asked Margery, more for the pleasure the 
suggestion would give the fraulein, than a desire for information. 

“Oh, yes!” Frauline Rachel replied, clasping her hands in rap¬ 
ture, her eyes glowing as if claiming kinship with a diety, “I once 
helped nurse one of his sons who was very ill, and each day while in 
the palace, my admiration for the Kaiser increased. His devotion to 
the Kaiserin and his little daughter—she was little then—was beauti¬ 
ful. I do not see how anyone could really know the Kaiser and not 
admire and love him. This is one reason why it makes us all so 
furious to have such things said of him, as are said in the papers of 
the Allies. Have you ever....” 

In another moment Margery would have told she was English. 
For, until this moment she had entirely forgotten her promise. But 
there was a knock at the door. Elsa entered, her eyes dancing with 
excitment. 

“I am so glad you are dressed!” she exclaimed to Margery. 
“Come right away and speak to Colonel Reintz!” 

“You are only to stay a few minutes,” said Fraulein Schmidt, 
taking her arm affectionately, and escorting her to the door. “You 
must go for a little walk this morning. Dr. von Westarf wished you 
to be on duty this afternoon.” 

Elsa followed them from the room, and together they entered 
Colonel Reintz apartment. They paused at the door a moment, and 
Fraulein said beamingly: 

“The Kaiser was here this morning, and Dr. von Westarf told 
him of your ride, and that you had helped save the life of Colonel 
Reintz.” 

She opened the door, and they entered softly, pausing a moment 
in order that their eyes might become accustomed to the darkness of 
the room. The patient, however, saw them, and holding out his hand 
said, simply: 

“Let me thank you, Fraulein Keblinger, for saving my life.” 

“The very little that I did, gave me great satisfaction.” Mar¬ 
gery replied blushing. “You must try to get well quickly,’” she ad¬ 
ded gently, “for I see you are already much better.” 

Fraulein Schmidt suddenly stepped forward with an air of 
solemnity, and Margery saw that the Colonel held something in his 
hand, and the moment had grown tense with expectancy. 

“The Kaiser left this for me to present with his thanks—and 
blessing. He regretted not being able to present it in person.” 

“But you were asleep,” Fraulein Rachel could not refrain from 


208 


TRAPPED 


breaking in to add this touch to her idol, “and his gracious majesty, 
always thoughtful of others, would not allow you to be disturbed.” 

Margery turned a little white with excitment and surprise, as 
Colonel Reintz, supported by Fraulein Schmidt and the physician, 
pinned the iron cross on her shoulder. 

“It—is a great deal for my slight service!” Margery stammered 
her face brave and glad with appreciation. 

The prince thanked her again, and Fraulein Rachel drew the girl 
away. “You must be getting some breakfast,” she suggested, her 
eyes resting anxiously on the prince-colonel. It was a bit exciting 1 
for a patient to confer so great an honor. 

“Au revoir—until after awhile,” Margery flashed in the doorway 
at the handsome young prince. He smiled back radiantly—until the 
door closed. Did he sigh? Did she hear him? 

When Margery finished her simple meal, she started for the air¬ 
ing that the fraulein advised. She had the unusual holiday of two 
hours before reporting for duty. As she walked down the sunny 
street, she looked at the decoration, for which so many men 
had risked their lives. She turned it over, and her English blood 
thrilled as she read her name written in German on it. It seemed 
to mean more because she was not a German nurse. In spite of all 
Lady Florence had said against the Kaiser, she felt that she too 
would be proud of it. And Dallas! He would feel she had really 
proved herself a true woman. That sweet consciousness of some¬ 
thing in her meaning more to a man than mere beauty, stirred in her. 
Then she observed that those passing her looked at the cross on her 
uniform. Women were not decorated every day, and she knew they 
were wondering, what a slip of a girl had done, to merit it. 

So many turned to look at her that she began to feel conspicuous. 
To avoid notice, she crossed the street to the little park, and almost 
unconsciously went to the same seat that she had occupied the day 
she met prince Mavalanka. 

To her amazement he arose from the garden bench as she ap¬ 
proached it. 

He bowed with the stately grace she was beginning to know so 
well, but he looked at her reproachfully. 

“My child! You have again failed to keep your promise!” 

Margery stood bewildered, and too ashamed to speak. 

“Do you think the Kaiser would have decorated you, had he 
known you were English?” 

“Oh—I—did not think of that!” she cried. “But I am sure 
they know! But I will—I will tell Fraulein Schmidt as soon as she 
leaves the room of.... ” 

“You must not wait until then.” the prnce said positively. “You 
must go at once to General von Meyer. He has just gone to the Hotel 
de Ville. Ask him to send you home immediately. As you have just 
won the cross he may grant your request. You must not lose one 


TRAPPED 


209 


minute. Promise me that you will oblige an old man by doing as he 
begs you —begs you!” 

“I will! I will go at once!” 

He turned from her without a word. 

“I—am so very sorry_” she began her belatel eqeuses, “but 

I have been so occupied—so many things happening—This,” her eyes 
dropped to the cross, “of course I was glad to get it.” She blushed 
at her confession, and she looked up appealingly. 

But the prince was gone. 

She turned down the path by which she had entered, and glanced 
quickly around the park. “He must have taken the other way,” she 
thought. “I wanted to ask him about all of them in London. ...” 

She turned back towards the Hotel de Ville walking rapidly with 
the vague hope of getting, at least a disappearing glimpse of the 
prince. But she was not so rewarded. Vexed with herself that she 
had forgotten her promise, she took the short way to Headquarters, 
past the railroad station. 

A train load of wounded had just been brought in. They were 
being carried on litters from the cars to the hotel hospital, where she 
had watched the wounded sing during her first walk in La Fenelle. 

“Poor fellows.” she thought with a stifled groan, watching the 
stretchers as they crossed the street before her. Her experience at 
the junction and La Bellevue made her realize the quivering agony 
of each human burden. She glanced at the train and saw it was a 
long one, and guessed at the vast number of mutilated men it bore. 

“There must have been a dreadful conflict somewhere! I won¬ 
der how far they have come? Oh! there is one in khaki!” an exclaim- 
ation escaped her. 

Suddenly her heart went into her throat and she started forward 
with a cry of mingled delight and horror. 

“Margery! Margery!” cried a weak, glad voice in response, from 
the stretcher. 

It was Dallas Hope. 

He was there! She was not dreaming—she was not only think¬ 
ing it might be he—But she was—looking in his face—at his ocean- 
blue eyes and the remembered curl of his lips—thinned and black¬ 
ened by pain—but beautiful still. He was reaching out one shaking 
hand hungrily toward her, while the other lay limp and bandaged 
on his chest. 

This was where they met—and how! In the enemy’s country— 
the lithe body of the man she loved stretched on a litter! 

Her wonder of what he would say to her first, was answered. He 
was repeating her name over and over, in a sort of cry that wrench¬ 
ed her heart, and drew a flood of tears down her face. 

She caught his hand in both of hers, and pressed it to her cheek; 
then, still holding it, walked beside him; and neither knew the at- 


210 


TRAPPED 


tention they attracted. !She tried to say something about his wounds, 
but he interrupted. 

“'Scratches!” he said. “Is it you! Is it you! Margery to find 
you here! I can’b believe it!” 

The stretcher bearers, stumbled. They almost dropped Dallas in 
their surprise that a German nurse, wearing the iron cross, should be 
speaking English to an English prisoner—more—showing pleasure at 
the sight of him. Yet the iron cross saved her from criticism in 
their, minds. Their eyes rested on it, and they felt their emporer 
could make no mistake. And girls are such foolish creatures! She 
was perfectly safe to walk on beside Dallas. 

Dallas, too, felt alone with her. The rough Germans who could 
not understand! His English words were no more animate than the 
litter that bore him. In the delirious shock of the unexpected, the 
torrent of his love rushed out. 

“Did you get my letter, Margery? You do know I love you— 
love you—Every minute since, I’ve been suffering to know what you 
—feel. Oh, Margery you do care—just a little?” 

“Yes, I had your letter,” she said softly; “Tell me—about your 
wounds.” 

She knew they were not scratches. The lightly wounded were 
not carried on stretchers. The horror of tetanus was immediately 
in her mind, because of Colonel Reintz’s danger. 

The look with which she devoured Dallas was more anxiety than 
love—as he knew love. 

“Oh. that’s all right! Tell me what I want to know! Could 
you care ever—Margery!” 

“Have your wounds been properly dressed?” she asked abruptly. 
The nurse’s touch recognized fever in the hand she held, and his 
bandages were grimy as well as dry and blood-soaked, and she knew 
no trained nurse had ever been guilty of the knots that fastened the 
dressings. 

“Oh, let the wounds go to.... I’m thinking of you! Have been 
thinking of nothing but you—since I told you good-bye at the London 
station. Margery! I’ve lived with the thoughts of you! Of every 
word that you have said to me—every look you have given me! I’ve 
been mad to see you—and tell you that I love you! That I want you 
always! I couldn’t have stood it without your picture. When your 
letters didn’t come, it was all I had. I felt you liked me—or you 
wouldn’t have given it to me?” It was an appeal of irristible hu¬ 
mility. “Oh, I love you so! You can’t know what it means to go 
into battle—hour after hour—day after day—thinking always of 
the one—dearest! It makes you so sure. Standing face to face 
with death, teaches you that nothing, but love counts! Margery if 
you could care a little!” 

Margery remembered reading somewhere that a man would con¬ 
tinue his seige of a woman’s heart, when flags of surrender were fly- 


TRAPPED 


211 


ing from every outpost. She longed to put her arms about him, 
and bring back that charming Cupid smile of her dreams. And he 
asked her if she cared for him a little? How could she give then— 
the wonder that she felt? 

He mistook her hesitation and her quick glance at his wounds. 
She did not love him, she was merely sorry because he was hurt. 

“I had forgotten my wounds,” he said dully. 

The pain suddenly reasserted itself fiercely. The bandages 
put on his leg to stop the flow of blood, had not been loosened, and 
the limb was beginning to swell. In the shock of joy at seeing Mar¬ 
gery he had forgotten his agony. The throbs though, were of too 
intense a nature to remain forgotten long, and each pang forced him 
to realize—what he had also forgotten—the danger of losing his foot 
—and Margery. A blackness swept him sickeningly. He lost Mar. 
gery’s face a moment, but he kept his eyes toward her, as he struggled 
against the faintness. 

As he saw her her face again, he said bravely, “I might lose a 
foot. If I do, I will not ask you—to—to marry me.” 

Margery saw his suffering in the pallor that touched his face. 
She bent over him, an enormous tenderness swelling in her. Some 
vague sense of the street and those about them, somehow restrained 
it to mere words. 

“What difference could the loss of a foot possibly make,” she 
whispered passionately, “Don’t you know I should love you all the 
better; for you would still be Dallas —my Dallas.” 

She stopped, her glorious color suffusing her. She had not 
meant to have their great moment on the street, with the stretcher 
bearers watching her, “Like idiots,” she thought wrathfully. 

“Love me better if I lost it! I shall order—you hear—order the 
surgeon to amputate it the moment we reach the hospital!” Then 
the light flared out of his face, “if I lose it, I will not ask you to 
marry me.” 

“Not even if you knew I loved you?” she quizzed, with a touch 
of her old coquetry. 

“You will have to marry me—before we know,” he pled, “this 
afternoon—Margery!—Oh!” 

The stretcher bearers had jolted the litter and twisted his muti¬ 
lated limb. He caught a groan between his teeth, and his love- 
hungry eyes, fixed on Margery, grew blank. 

She touched his face with a quick cry. 

“It shall be as you want Dallas—all as you want!” she promised 
breathlessly. The gray shades creeping round his eyes and nostrils 
might be death. He must know before he left her! She longed for 
her hypodermic as she had never wanted anything in her life. She 
could do nothing but steady him a bit and urge the bearers to move 
more gently and swiftly, and encourage Dallas. 


212 


TRAPPED 


"We are nearly at the hospital, Dallas! You will be better 
in a minute !” 

In a little while he was better. She saw the blind look clear 
from his eyes, and she bent close to him and repeated, for fear he 
had not heard: 

“It shall be as you wish! Dallas, I love you!” 

He kissed her hand with a queer sound—a sort of sob, and 
tried to draw her down to his face. He gave her a wonderful 
look. Suddenly something shrewd and sane looked out of his joy 
that she had not seem before. 

“Margery!” he cried, “I’m a brute to ask it! I can’t ask it- 
even if you love me—till we know, i take it all back.” 

“Take it all back,’ echoed in Margery’s mind blankly. 

“I was out of my head with the happiness of seeing you. To¬ 
morrow I may be saner—and tell you that I do not love you at all.” 

“Not love you at all,” Margery’s brain repeated these words 
mechanically. Her heart stood still. 

“If the leg goes—and I’m not a cad,” Dallas muttered “I’ll 
put it over. And win my self-respect, and your respect.” 

“How?” Margery was as pale as Dallas. 

“By giving you up—and lying about it, in pretending that I 
am able to do it.” 

He loved herlThe red blood rushed back into her face—and 
her life. The momentary fear that he did not love her had frozen 
her heart as the thought of his death had not. Love slumbers in the 
breast of every girl. Once awakened it sleeps no more. The 
voice that rouses love can never lull it back to rest. Margery 
knew by that single instant of suspense, that if Dallas should not 
love her, her love would be the same. She had again that singular 
feeling—that she had had when she read his letter—that through 
all her life she had loved him. Inexplicable, wond!rous, new-born 
Thing! She knew now, that it would live within her everlastingly. 

“But if luck is with us—and we are certain-” 

“Certain that you love me,” said Margery very gently. 

“Love you! Love you!” he flamed. “Could I offer to give you 
up, if I did not love you more than life itself? You know I love you p* 
But if I lose my....” 

“If you don’t!” interrupted Margery, smiling at him with one 
of the flashes of her sweeping lashes. 

“If I don’t—will you marry me this afternoon!” 

Margery caught her breath. Was there ever such an importu¬ 
nate lover as this bandaged knight. 

“You sweetest thing on earth! If you promise me—Til get 
well. If it should be the worst_” 

Again he hesitated. 

“Then,” smiled Margery, “If love be the only thing that counts..” 
She gave him a look, which told all things! Promised all things! 


TRAPPED 


213 


“You’ll marry me to-day!” his tone shook her with its ring of 
amazed love. 

They had reached the hospital. 


CHAPTER LIII. 

A Backward Glance. 

A train of circumstances of which Margery was totally una¬ 
ware, had been set in motion, while she waited impatiently for 
her chauffeur before the restaurant in Brussels. 

The two officers who had tried to form her acquaintance, met 
in the cafe', as she was watching for Hans. They took a table be¬ 
fore an open window. 

“I have just been snubbed by a pretty widow,” one of them ob¬ 
served, “and the joke is that she at one time, not only accepted my 
attentions, but very nearly accepted me.” 

“Fritz,” chuckled his fellow officer, “No man could sympathize 
as I—for I am smarting from a similar incident. The woman is not 
a thousand miles away at this moment, either.” 

“You mean the lady in the auto in front—here?” 

“I do.” 

The waiter approached at this moment, pencil in hand, and be¬ 
fore this important matter, they forgot the pretty widow for several 
seconds. After the waiter had departed with his order, she was 
again remembered. 

“Let’s have another look at her,” one suggested. “I was sure I 
recognized her;but when she refused to speak to me, I supposed 
myself mistaken.” 

They stepped to the window just in time to see Count von Jan- 
otha touch his helmet and hesitate; then, encouraged by Margery’s 
lovely, reluctant smile, advance to talk to her, standing with his hand 
on the door of the vehicle. 

“You are sure that is Madame Keblinger?” asked Fritz. 

“Positively,” was the reply. 

“I knew her in St. Petersburg. She was in half-mourning, 
but her gowns and jewels were the talk of the town,” Fritz con¬ 
tinued. 

“And veils,” added Theodor, “I never saw her without a veil— 
the most ravishing a woman ever wore. Seeing her in a nurse’s 
cap makes quite a difference. I thought she wore the veils to con¬ 
ceal any needed complexion repairs—but it must have been to 
protect it. There! Did you catch that sweep of her lashes—I am 
sure it is she.” 

“Yes, those eyes and lashes couldb’t be duplicated!” asserted 
Theodor; “and that shade of hair is too rare to be mistaken. I re- 


214 


TRAPPED 


cognized her instantly—though, as you say, her uniform makes a 
difference. But an uncommonly becoming difference/’ 

“Otherwise she would not wear it. I never saw her looking bet- 
bet.” 

“I guess she takes temperatures, and smiles at the patients. 
She is doing no work that will dull her nails.” 

“Certainly not,” agreed Fritz. “Who is the officer that she is 
not snubbing?” 

“Captain Count von Janotha, who boasts that he never had a 
second conversation with any ugly woman—his wife excepted. Money 
is the compensation there.” 

Both men laughed lightly, and turned to the table. The waiter 
had begun placing covered dishes and wine bottles before them. 

“She’s a beauty, all right, though the count can hardly call her 
excessively cordial.” 

“That’s her game,” exclaimed Fritz.. “She says <she can read men 
like books. May be so. Perhaps she sees that with the count, nett¬ 
ing the bird, is half the pleasure.... ” 

“I don’t understand why she snubs us, and flirts there with the 
count. He’s married,” interrupted Theodor grumblingly. 

“It is the title,’’Fritz declared. “She’s daffy about titles. She 
talked continually about her uncle, the Grand Duke of something. 
It seems when almost a child she fell in love, ran off and married 
beneath her. Evidently the family never forgave her. I think that’s 
why she never spoke Russian. Did she always talk French to you?” 

“No, I met her in Berlin—and! it was great sport listening to her 
mistakes. Her German....” he stopped to make a wry face. “By 
thunder, Fritz,” he exclaimed setting down the bottle he had raised 
to fill his glass. “If she is Russian, what is she doing here, in the 
uniform of a German nurse?” 

“Here! We had better look into this!” Fritz dropped his fork 
with a clatter in his plate. 

“Let’s speak at once to Count von Janotha,” decided Theodor 
rising from the table. 

When they reached the window, however, both automobiles had 
disappeared. 

“We can find the count after lunch,” suggested Fritz. 

“Perhaps—we had better let it pass,” Theodor suggested with a 
shrug. “He might think we were jealous of him. Besides she must 
be all right, or she wouldn’t be with him. Women can change count¬ 
ries as easily as a chameleon changes color.” 

Early the next morning Captain von Janotha motored swiftly 
into Brussels. On one of the principal streets he sprang out of his 
car, and stood a moment instructing his chauffeur to overlook the 


TRAPPED 


215 


motor and see that is was in perfect order, and return for him in an 
hour. 

The car sped off, and the count sauntered leisurely toward a 
shop that offered a brand of cigars that he smoked. Loyal Belgians 
gazed at him not at all—did not even see him as he passed. He stop¬ 
ped frequently to chat with fellow officers. Fritz and Theodor cross¬ 
ed the street to speak to him. 

“You are a lucky dog,” laughed Fritz, indicating the slipper 
the count wore on his wounded foot. “To be out of this vile row 
kicking up on the front, yet to be able to enjoy the capital.” 

“I felt I was an unlucky dog when I was wounded,” returned 
the count, “I thought it would prevent my entering Paris. I en¬ 
joyed the ingress so much here,” he broke into his loud laugh, “that 
I wanted to repeat the experience. We were planning a triumphal 
entry—and I saw red when I was ordered to the hospital for treat¬ 
ment. Until yesterday I have been hovering near the front, to be 
on hand when we swing back towards Paris—Ah! This is good! 
Colonel Max Hoeselar!” 

He shook hands with the third officer who strolled up. The 
other officers also greeted the new comer. 

“I leave in half an hour with reinforcements for General von 
Meyer,” Hoeselar announced. “You are from headquarters, how 
goes it at the front?” 

“The devil only knows!” replied the count gloomily. 

“So I understand,” retorted Hoeselar with a wry smile. “How 
did Meyer lose his strangle-hold of Paris?” 

“That’s what no one explains,” grunted the count. “All we are 
positive of, is that when we were within seventeen miles of Paris” 
the count interrupted himself with a lurid oath, “get that Hoeselar? 
Seventeen miles of Paris—our advance halted, cur right wing, crump¬ 
led by superior numbers, drove back on our center. This of course 
compelled the retirement of our whole line. Yet that was a masterly 
turn, there, on the Marne—let me tell you—that only German genius 
could have accomplished without a rout. But it was the most ex¬ 
asperating necessity that ever befell an. army. Since then we have 
gradually retreated. I was not there, but I have talked to dozens 
who were. Our men stood under fire until killed, or ordered to 
retreat. Thousands were sacrificed. It was either retreat or be en¬ 
veloped and captured. Any man would rather be dead than cap¬ 
tured.” 

They had reached the shop that was the count’s objective. The 
show window was attractive, and a German sign flaunted boldly 
over the door. 

“I am going in here for cigars, before I return to the near 
front,” said the count, “come in, and smoke.” 

The officers entered the store, Hoeselar protesting that he had 


216 


TRAPPED 


to be off in a second. They all lit cigars, however, and as Fritz 
blew out rings of smoke he remarked significantly, 

“You were more fortunate yesterday than we were with the 
pretty widow.” 

“The pretty widow,” repeated the count puzzled, “I— recall no 
pretty widow.” 

“Ho, oh!” laughed Colonel Hoeselar, “still up to your old tricks, 
Count. Ill write your wife to come and look after your wounds.” 

Everybody laughed, Count von Janotha as loudly as the rest, 
though he protested. “You know Max I have never been partial to 
the widow species of woman-kind. They are too wise. The younger 
the better, I say.” 

Fritz's curiosity was piqued because the count so evidently dis¬ 
claimed the widow. He decided to probe the mystery a bit. 

“Her taste has certainly degenerated,” he said to himself, as he 
studied the count’s red countenance, falling into the slouchy wrinkles 
of dissipation. 

“Of course she may have married since, but she was a widow 
when I met her in St. Petersburg several years ago. I recognized 
her at once, but she cut me dead.” 

“She is thinner,” added Theodor, “which is an improvement; and 
paler—due doubtless—like Fritz’s suddenly gray hair, to difficulty 
of procuring certain articles.... ” 

“Oh, shut up,” cried Fritz, confusedly. Then he plunged on, 
“she is more beautiful without the rouge than with it. We were in 
the reserves when she knew us, and she may not have recognized us 
in our uniforms, as officers.” 

“Where do I come in, in all this?” asked the count, amused at 
Fritz’s embarrassment. 

Fritz turned on him sharply. “You have not forgotten already 
that yesterday in front of the hotel you talked to Madame Keblinger, 
while she sat in her car....” 

“Madame Keblinger! Did you say Madame?” interrupted the 
count, loudly. Though his mind flashed the words of General von 
Meyer! “There is a spy near us. For the last week, everything that 
I have said or done, or even whispered to myself, has reached the 
enemy.” 

“Just the length of time she has been at headquarters nursing 
the prince. I came down on the train with her a week ago,” thought 
the count. 

Then Margery’s flower like face, that charming sweep of the 
bronze lashes as she smiled faintly at him from the car,—‘her pure 
girlishness, held his decision at bay an instant. 

“Would you swear that she is Madame Keblinger?” he thundered. 

“Yes,” both officers answered in the same breath. 

“She is German, isn’t she?” 


TRAPPED 


217 


“No, she is not a German. Keblinger, her husband may have 
been a German.” 

“Keblinger! Keblinger!” repeated Colonel Hoeselar. 

“I knew her in St. Petersburg, and thought she was a Russian. 
We thought it queer for her to be wearing the uniform of a German 
Red Cross nurse,” said Fritz, “but when we saw her with you, we 
decided she must be all right, and let the matter drop.” 

“I know her in a way,” returned the count reluctantly. He was 
thinking of the rebuffs he had received. “She was no princess. 
And, d....chary of her smiles!” he said to himself. Then aloud 
“She is one of the nurses in charge of Colonel Reintz_” 

“Does real nursing?” quizzed Theodor, surprised. 

“Yes, she is an accomplished nurse. They combed the hospital 
for the four best nurses to put on the case; and the surgeon, I hear, 
prefers her. But she calls herself Fraulein Margarethe Keblinger.” 
And I saw the papers she signed saying she was a native of Berlin.” 

“She is French,” cried Theodore, “not German.” 

“She is Russian,” reinterated Fritz. 

“Keblinger!” repeated Colonel Hoeselar, “ah! I know now! Al¬ 
fred Keblinger’s widow—pretty—very pretty, blonde hair, and un¬ 
usual bronze lashes....” 

“Exactly!” cried Fritz and Theodor. 

“She is English,” Hoeselar repeated positively, “I knew of her 
and her husband before his death. I know, too, that she lived all 
over Europe—but she is English.” 

“English! Then she is a spy!” The three officers uttered it 
as if a single voice had spoken. 

There was an amazed pause. 

“Nothing less than such a mission would cause Madame Kebling¬ 
er to work,” Theodor remarked, suddenly, “for she is enormously 
rich.” 

Fritz was staring at Theodor. “This is why she refused to 
recognize us, Theodor,” he said. 

“This information must be laid at once before General von Meyer. 
You, gentlemen, must go with me to La Fenelle.” 

“No, we take the train—in a quarter of on hour-” Fritz 

looked at his watch, “with Colonel Hoeselar, for the Western front. 
We are just a block from the station....” 

“Then you must all three sign a statement that Madame Keb¬ 
linger is not German—but English, as well as Russian, and French. 
And it must be done at once,” asserted Count von Janotha positively. 

A quarter of an hour later German efficiency had turned the 
trick. Count von Janotha buttoned an important, and properly 
accredited document, in his breast pocket, a<s his chauffeur drove 
towards La Fenelle. 


213 


TRAPPED 


CHAPTER LIV. 

An Unwelcome Confession. 

Margery hurried to the office and explained that she was one 
of the nurses for Colonel Reintz, but was off duty for two hours, and 
could she dress the English prisoner’s wounds. 

“He has lost blood” she added, and needs immediate attention.” 

As she spoke Margery suddenly remembered her promise to the 
Indian Prince. “This is not the place to say I am English,” she de¬ 
cided. “And he bade me tell General Von Meyer; and I will do it as 
soon as I go back. He could not ask me to desert Dallas!” She was 
so much in love that a mere promise weighed little, when her lover was 
in the balance. 

Margery’s perfect German, and her decoration, lifted her request 
for the English prisoner above suspicion. The nurse in charge 
glanced at the wounded man, read the card, recognized his need, and 
knowing the scarcity of nurses compared to the number of wounded 
pouring in, nodded consent. 

Margery lost no time in cutting away what was left of the trouser 
leg, Dallas talking all the time. 

“Russell did his best on that bandage.” 

Margery removed the temporary bandage, and her heart sank as 
she saw the state of the wound. 

“Amos risked his life to fix me up.” 

“Amos Russell!” repeated the girl involuntarily, “Who is he?” 

“My second lieutenant. He dragged me out of the way of the 
bullets and the cavalry, that were on their way across the field. He 
was a queer beggar. Never thought he liked me. He might have 
cut back with the others—I begged him to—but he lugged me behind 
a big stump—And—and decorated me with these bandages—before 
I could make him leave.” 

“O-o-h! Margery straightened, forgetting the wound for a mo¬ 
ment. “Was—was he killed?” In her heart she was asking, “Have 
I killed him?” 

“I don’t know,” hesitated Dallas soberly. “I ordered him back, 
and hope he reached the regiment safely. But the roar of the shell¬ 
ing soon after he started was awful. Still, as far as my eyes could 
follow him he was all right, and had nearly reached the woods. When 
I was carried from the field, the train with the first load of wounded 
had gone. Hundreds of us poor devils spent the night on the station 
floor. I can’t speak German, so I couldn’t ask about Russell. The 
ambulance brought in wounded all night, but I saw no one besides 
myself in khaki.” 

While Dallas spoke through Margery’s mind flashed the realiza¬ 
tion : 

“He did it for my sake! He saved Dallas because he thought I 


TRAPPED 


219 


loved him. It is the noblest thing I ever heard of. Amos really loved 
me.” 

The girl did not at all understand the whirlwind of emotion which 
was sweeping her along as she—like one drowning—reviewed in a 
moment all that had passed between her and the under-secretary. 

“And I intimated that he was a coward!” ran her thoughts ac¬ 
cusingly, while she only half heard what her lover was saying. “Oh! 
I can never, never, never, forgive myself, if... .Oh, if I could only tell 
him how sorry I am, and that I did not mean_” 

At this moment the surgeon reached Dallas and examined his 
wounds. He spoke to Margery in German in a low tone. 

“Fortunately, Dr. von Westarf by special messenger, to-day re¬ 
ceived anti-tetanus serum. He must have treatment at once. We’ll save 
the arm—but the foot is doubtful. Some shattered bone may have 
to be removed. Don’t let him know; his heart is weak from loss of 
blood, and the shock might affect him badly. Prepare him for the 
operating table. You were talking in English to him. Tell him I 
want to probe into this trouble, and we are going to give him an anaes¬ 
thetic.” 

Margery repeated the message, glad to leave the matter so. 

An hour later she left the hospital. She had promised Dallas 
to return that afternoon with a minister and license, to marry him. 

She felt she had never before known what an operation meant. 
It had been terrible. The beads of torture had stood out on her face 
and arms as she took her place by the table. Even the hardened sur¬ 
geon asked her if she were going to faint. She shook her head. She 
might have died, but she never could have fainted. 

In the end she had thanked God that Hope’s foot would be saved 
—though it might be stiff for a long while. 

Now, walking through the sunny street, the air revived and calm¬ 
ed her. She—was to be married in a few hours! It came to her with 
something of its reality. 

“What will lady Florence think?” she wondered. Her own life- 
cherished picture of Margery Keblinger sweeping down a church aisle, 
dragging a train, and preceeded by attendants, rose dimly somewhere 
in her consciousness. “No flowers—no veil—a nurse’s uniform!” This 
fact did not move her at all. “It may help to save his life.” I love 
him! 0! God,” she prayed, hastening down the street, “You heard 
my prayer! You let someone give him the help he needed! Though 
I never dreamed it could be Amos.” 

Her nurse’s habit of instant and adeuqate execution swept away 
inner debatings. “How can I find a minister who speaks English?” 
she asked herself, “Elsa may know.” 

As she neared the Hotel de Ville she saw Count von Janotha 
hurriedly stop an auto at the entrance. She stepped suddenly within 
the protection of a show case, as if intending to enter the store. From 


220 


TRAPPED 


this position, to her surprise, she saw the count jump from his car, 
rush up the steps and disappear within the building. 

She gave the the count time to pass well out of the main hall, 
before she hurried up the steps of the Hotel deVille. A glance at 
her watch convinced her she must hurry to tell her secret and be 
ready to go on duty at her appointed hour. As the guard parted the 
curtain for her to enter the suite of Colonel Reintz, she wondered 
how she could best introduce the subject that she was English, to 
Fraulein Schmidt. It was not news, she felt—'but how could she 
mention the fact, without suggesting antagonism to her German 
co-workers. She wanted Fraulein to go with her to General von- 
M« yer. 

As she passed into the nurse’s apartment—one long room—with 
four white beds—she decided to change her uniform, in order to be 
freshly attired for the general, as well as to be ready to go instantly 
to the prince-colonel. As she thought of him, she was conscious of a 
subtle change—a distance between them. A distance that the touch 
of Dallas Hope, the tremendeous emotions that had torn her during 
his operation, and that had rushed out to him in her promise to marry 
him that very day—had created. It was a sort of shock that passed 
in sweetness. Something of the girl had gone, something of the wife 
had already come. 

Fraulein Schmidt entered carrying a chart, evidently to show 
Margery something. 

“Oh, Fraulein! I was wanting to see you so!” said Margery. 

The fraulein looked at her quickly. “I see—you have something 
important to tell me. What is it, my child?” and she touched Mar¬ 
gery’s arm affectionately. 

“If I am to marry Dallas, they must know that too—and not 
only that I am engaged.” Margery determined inwardly. 

“Fraulein,” she let the agitation, the joy, the awful hurt of the 
operating room, rush out in her shaking voice. “I passed the hospital 
in my walk, as they were bringing the wounded from the train, and 
my—fiance'—was among them!” 

“How terrible!” exclaimed Fraulein Rachel, putting her arm a- 
bout the trembling girl, in an up-gush of German sympathy with 
sentiment. “I hope he is not badly wounded,” <she added practically. 

“It is serious,” Margery’s lips quivered, as well as her voice, 
“He may have tetanus; though we hope not—and he does not know 
it. But he is conscious again, and knows what he is talking about—” 

“He may not,” suggested Fraulein, “ether patients say things 
they afterwards do not remember, you know.” 

Margery’s breath stopped. Could Dallas have been delirious 
when he asked her to marry him that afternoon? 

“I suppose you gave him ether?” pursued the fraulein. 

Margery nodded, breathing again. Dallas had wanted her to 
marry him before the operation. Afterward—he had still remember- 


TRAPPED 


221 


ed; but be had talked of the train, given orders to his men, and been 
himself only at moments. 

“He will be entirely himself by the time you return to him,” 
soothed Fraulein Rachel. “I’ll arrange for some one else to stay with 
Colonel Reintz this afternoon. The prince will agree, when he knows 
—and of course you will want to nurse your lover.” 

“That will be lovely of you!” tears sprang to Margery’s eyes. 
“You are the kindest, Fraulein! Could you get—a minister to go to 
see him—to talk to him,” she finished lamely. “He wanted—a minist¬ 
er.” 

“This must be a very serious case,” thought Fraulein with fore- 
boding. But she answered cheerfully, “I’ll see at once about it.” 

She kissed the girl affectionately and gave her waist a little 
squeeze. 

“Will you see that the minister speaks English?” asked Margery 
as calmly as she could. The question had come to her as an inspira¬ 
tion. It would almost, without another word, convey the reminder 
that she was English. 

Had Margery, however, struck the fraulein in the face, she would 
not have been more shocked. “Speaks English! English!” she with¬ 
drew her arm and stiffened. “Margarethe Keblinger, you certainly 
would not disgrace yourself and disappoint us all—just as the Kaiser 
decorates you, by marrying an Englishman.” 

“Possibly as the Indian Prince said they do not know that I am 
English,” Margery gasped inwardly, wild possibilities opening in a 
mental vista, before her. 

Fraulein Rachel’s face beaming with kindness a moment before 
flamed with passion. Margery realized that long before she should 
have made sure that they knew she was English. She should not have 
forgotten the warning of Prince Mavalanka. Yet here, her newly 
tender conscience did not prick her. She had really forgotten, in the 
stress of unusual duties and emotions. The same instant that brought 
these conclusions crowded another upon her. Fraulein, and probably 
Elsa and Bertha, would withdraw their friendship. Dr. Karl, and even 
the prince-colonel—might denounce her. 

With all her weaknesses, however, Margery was no coward. She 
possessed a temper, too, under beautiful control so long as replies 
were suggested by reason. But under attack—whether just or unjust 
—her temper flared up in instinctive self-defense. 

“Disgrace myself!” she declared indignantly, her nervous fingers 
pinning the iron cross on her fresh uniform, “and disappoint you! 
I can’t see how—when— as you know—I, too, am English!” 

Fraulein fell into a chair as if she had been knocked there. 

“You—you English!” She shrieked 1 in amazed horror. “Whom 
we have kept with us, and allowed to nurse Prince An.... ” she 
choked, her eyes dilating with the awful possibilities that broke on 


222 


TRAPPED 


her mind. “You might—have poisoned himJ ,, iShe covered her face 
with her hands and wept violently. 

“Instead, I saved his life!” cried Margery. Her chin tilted un¬ 
consciously, and her eyes flashing. “Dr. von Westarf—and you, too 
—told the Kaiser that I saved his life.” 

This unexpected flash of independence made the fraulein cease 
weeping and listen to the girl. Margery, with the cool English dig¬ 
nity that doubtless filtered through her veins from her great-grand 
mother the Duchess of Almont, added: 

“The English are neither murderers nor assasins. Wounded, 
women, children, prisoners and non-combatants , are perfectly safe in 
our hands. We are either friends nor open foes.” 

“Then why have you not told me sooner that you were English?” 

“I thought you knew it. I thought Red Cross nurses served who¬ 
ever happened to need them, and that I was selected to nurse Colonel 
Reintz for my skill. You had the paper that I filled out.” 

“Why did you not stay in Reaux when we retreated from there? 

“Retreated from Reaux! Did the Germans retreat?” gasped 
Margery joyfully. “I did not know it—you told me you were taking 
Colonel Reintz to Brussels for treatment. We stopped here because 
he could travel no further. I asked no questions—because I knew if 
Paris were destroyed, I should be heart-broken. I preferred not to 
know it. I love Paris better than any place on earth—better than 
London!” 

The Fraulein looked at her, uncertain what to believe, or to do. 

But her face did not soften. She stood grim, outraged—speech¬ 
less. 

Under her silence Margery's quick temper died down, and her 
promise to the prince to tell General von Meyer came to her mind. 

“Since you say none of you know that I am English, I shall go at 
once to inform General von Meyer of the fact. I can't see what pos¬ 
sible difference it could make, since I am a Red Cross nurse, whether 
I am English or German or French.” Margery moved toward the 
door. 

“Stay where you are!” cried the fraulein suspiciously. She 
caught the girl by the arm and thrust her into the chair from which 
she had just sprung. “Sit there till I return. I shall tell General von 
Meyer that we have a spy in our midst.” 

The fraulein, before Margery could recover from her surprise, 
passed out of the door, which she closed firmly, but softly—because 
they were near Colonel Reintz. 

“I will tell him myself! I will go with you!” cried Margery 
springing to the door. 

As her hand touched the knob, the key—on the outside—turned 
in the lock. 

She was a prisoner. 


TRAPPED 


223 


CHAPTER LV. 

The Fraulein Cannot Stop Events. 

General von Meyer raised his bushy eyebrows with a frown, from 
the map that he, with his staff, was studying, as the guard admitted 
Count von Janotha. 

But the count, did not see the frown. He swung through the 
door, and crossed the room to the general’s desk, seemingly with one 
long excited stride. The general never wasted words. He cast a 
quick glance at the count and spoke curtly. 

“What news!” 

“I have found your spy,” The count’s answer came like a pistol 

shot. 

A pleased nod and a flash in the general’s eyes bade him go on. 

“As you suspected she is in our midst. Fraulein Keblinger is 
Madame Keblinger, a Russian, French or English widow!” 

“O-oh!” It came like a sighing wind from a dozen throats. 

Every officer present had seen Margery, and several had met 
her—and had experienced the indefinable magnetism that a f tracts 
men—augmented by the pure girlishness, that appeals to the best in 
them. Every officer had felt personally pleased when he heard she 
had been decorated. They forgot the map, and stood gazing amazed, 
listeningn, half-reluctantly, to the count. 

“I’ve driven fifty miles an hour to bring you this,” the count 
thumped down on the table the packet from his breast pocket. 

As the general opened it, the count gave a curt recital of the 
facts of Madame Keblinger’s history that the officers had furnished 
him. “It is possible,” he concluded, “that she has adopted this coun¬ 
try, but it is certainly queer that luck should turn against you at 
the front, the day, almost, that she arrived.” 

The general nodded assent. “This evidence is damaging,” he 
looked up from the papers. “How could she get in here!” he burst 
out. He rose and strode excitedly to the wall, pounding it with his 
sword hilt. “Secret passages maybe here; sliding panels; observa¬ 
tion niches, whispering galleries?” he checked the smile on the faces 
of some of his officers. “Not so spectacular as it sounds,” he added 
stiffly. “When these walls were built such things were usual, not ex¬ 
ceptional. This is a very old building. No doubt she has a diagram 
of the entire structure. Possibly some of the noise we have attri¬ 
buted to rats have been her eavesdroppings.” 

“With an electric flashlight that nurses carry,” the count broke 
in, “It would be very simple to find her way through passages that 
were dark. No stumbling.” 

“Arrest her at once,” ordered the general. “The circumstances 


224 


TRAPPED 


are too suspicious to be trifled with.” The general motioned to one 
of his staff. 

The officer left the room at once. 

“If she proves her innocence,” the general continued, “We shall 
have also proved our vigilance.” 

Just here an orderly approached, saluted, and stated that Frau¬ 
lein Schmidt requested a few minutes audience with General von 
Meyer. 

When Fraulein Schmidt turned the key in the door that made 
Margery a prisoner, and ascended the stairs that led to the apart¬ 
ment occupied by General von Meyer, she rapidly rehearsed, mentally, 
all that had passed between Margery and herself, to have it at her 
tongue’s end when she stood before the austere general of Germany’s 
great war machine. She was bitterly disappointed and bitterly angry. 
She felt the girl to whom she had been very kind, had deceived her— 
that she had been her dupe. 

“It is largely due to the beautiful things that I said about her 
to the Kaiser that made him decorate her.” 

Unconsciously as she repeated to herself the “beautiful things” 
her heart softened. She had said them because she felt they were so 
wholly true. They seemed true still, as they reverberated in her mind. 
Her step lagged. “I have been fond of the girl and she has seemed 
fond of me,” she paused for breath with her hand on the railing of the 
next flight of stairs. Margery’s amazed and reproachful glance, as 
she denounced her, flashed before the fraulein. 

She stopped with a little gasp. “Maybe she did not mean to de¬ 
ceive us. After all she is little more than a child—and in love!” 

Somehow only a sense of duty now impelled the fraulein for¬ 
ward. As she reached the guard at the door she had begun to feel 
that Margery’s desire to come with her, was a proper—possibly a 
necessary one. She hesitated, half intending to return for her, but 
the guard sharply demanded her errand, and there was nothing to do 
but to say what she had set out to state. 

The guard hurried her into the presence of the general and his 
staff. 

The fraulein realized as she glanced from one to another of the 
faces that surrounded her that she had interrupted a conference of 
grave import. She realized something else too. The grim suspicion 
that she had hurled at Margery down stairs, breathed in this mili¬ 
tary atmosphere took on another and frightful meaning. A choking 
sensation seized her, and she stood with one hand on her throat, un¬ 
able to utter a word. 

u Be seated, Fraulein/’ General von Meyer rose, and courteously 
offered her a chair. The officers clicked their heels together and 
formally saluted her. 

She did not see them, her eyes were fixed on the general’s face, 
and she sank into the chair before she could whisper agitatedly: 


TRAPPED 


225 


“General von Meyer, it is my duty—to inform you that—there is 
an English woman in the house.” 

Then aware that her tone added crime to the enormity of being 
English, she stared in dumb agony from one to another. 

She was surprised to see that her announcement caused no as¬ 
tonishment. She tried to collect her thoughts, to decide how best to 
go on with what she had to say, but she was struck utterly speechless 
by the general remarking coldly: 

“So I have just understood. How did you gain the information?” 

“Fraulein Keblinger told me she was English—a few minutes 
ago.” 

“So she has confessed it!” cried the count. 

“She did not confess it!” the fraulein rose and! held to the back 
of her chair as she spoke, “she simply mentioned it in conversation. 
She would have told it sooner, she said, but she thought we knew it 
before we left La Bellevue. She wanted to come with me to tell 
you. She came to the front to nurse—and she thought Red Cross 
nurses were neutral. She has—a lover at the front.... ” 

“She seems to have a lover in every port,” Count von Janotha 
laughed loudly. “I have just met several in Brussels.” 

The fact that he had not been allowed to even approach her 
rankled. 

The fraulein looked a moment at the count frigidly, and then as 
if he had not spoken, turned her eyes back to the general. “She isf 
young, and inexperienced....” 

She was cut short by a loud derisive laugh from the count. 

“She is the slickest spy we’ve ever had to deal with,” said the 
general hotly. 

“A spy!” gasped Fraulein Rachel, turning white. iShe felt a 
sudden determination to show that the girl was not this terrible 
thing. It sounded so utterly different from the word she had hurled 
at Margery in the nurse’s room. 

“A spy,” returned General von Meyer curtly. “You speak of 
her as young and inexpeprienced. She is at least thirty-five—possibly 
forty, and as for experience—he shrugged his shoulders. “Tell the 
fraulein what you heard in Brussels, Count von Janotha.” 

The fraulein listened, wide-eyed, until the count reached his 
last statement: “Instead of Fraulein Margarethe, she is Madame 
Keblinger. These officers flirted with her more than five years ago, 
and she was thirty or thirty-five then-” 

“Ridiculous!” interrupted Fraulein Rachel, forgetting that she 
was a nurse and talking to a general and his staff. “Five years ago 
Margarethe was a mere child. Her hair and complexion are natural 
A widow may throw dust in the eyes of meTi, but no female can mis¬ 
take a woman of forty, for a girl of nineteen or twenty-” 

“This has no bearing on the subject,” interrupted the general 
harshly. “As I told you days ago, I knew there was a spy close to 


22o 


TRAPPED 


us. She has acknowledged she is English. This in itself is really 
sufficient. iShe shall be tried by court martial, at once. Old Col¬ 
onel Zimmerman shall have the case. He knows the law and is half 
blind, and will not be influnced by her beauty.” 

Fraulein leaned N more heavily on her chair, her teeth almost 
chattering. She was vaguely conscious of reaching out a shaking 
hand toward the general, and of a voice unlike her own saying: 

“Let me go and tell her your decision, and prepare her for.... ” 
“She is already under arrest,” rebuked the general. “No one 
can see her.” (Seeing her startled expression he continued brutally, 
“Do you think we would give her an opportunity to escape, while you 
plead for her—an enemy of Germany! Madame Keblinger saw that 
Count von Janotha had returned, and suspecting he had discovered 
her identity, in desperation confessed to you. It is a plain case. 
Fraulein Schmidt, I bid you good-evening.” 

An officer stepped forward and escorted the lady out of the 
room, through the hall, and to the head of the stairs. 


CHAPTER LVI. 

Guards Make The Evening Strange. 

As Margery heard the key turn in the door, and felt the resist¬ 
ance to her violent pull on the knob, her first reaction was intense 
anger. How dare Fraulein take such a liberty! 

“If the general is to know, I am the one to tell him!” She tugg¬ 
ed at the knob again. 

It still resisted, however. It had a German efficiency lock. 
She ran to the window and looked down. The entrance to the cellar 
ran around the house, and beneath her window. Escape here was im¬ 
possible. She was too near Colonel Reintz to pound loudly on her door 
or make a disturbance. Dr. von Westarf had urged quiet as an im¬ 
portant necessary for the prince-colonel. In fact, one reason for stopp¬ 
ing at La Fenelle was to avoid noise of every kind. There was noth¬ 
ing to do, Margery concluded, but wait. 

“I shall certainly tell Fraulein Schmidt what I think of her 
extraordinary behavior. Treating me as a disobedient child!” 

She threw herself into a chair, her small foot tapping the floor 
agitatedly. “General von Meyer, I know, is broader-minded, than 
the fraulein. What right have they to invade France and object 
because they found an English nurse in one of the hospiptals? With 
French, American, German, and English nurses in La Bellevue they 
should have asked about it! I still see nothing in it, nor why the 
fraulein should lose her temper and insult me. That is precisely 
what she did. I intend to tell her so the minute she returns.” 

Margery noticed her iron cross was unpinned. 


TRAPPED 


227 


“If I had refused to come/’ she said. “Colonel Reintz would 
have died. Has she thought of that?” 

Margery pinned the cross securely—“Why did they keep the 
fact that they were retreating such a secret? Had I dreamed that 
they were retreating, and that I could have stayed at Reaux, I 
should have refused to leave.” 

Here she shook her head, her wonderful blush transforming her. 
“And missed seeing Dallas?” she asked herself, “when he needed 
me!” The great emotions of the day surged back on her—the sur¬ 
prise at meeting him—the vast joy of his love—the fear, the pain 
and blood—her promise! 

She glanced at the clock, and sprang to her feet excitedly. 

“I should be returning now to the hospital. Of rourse, Fraulein 
in this disgusting state of mind will not send for the minister—if 
Elsa snubs me too, how can I find out about the license? Maybe 
they will be disagreeable about giving an English girl a license.” 

She walked restlessly about the room. “Dallas is expecting me— 
he is perfectly rational now—he is alone—watching the door and 
wondering why I don’t come. Or he is looking at those strange 
faces_” 

(Suddenly the grim setting of her wedding day stood naked be¬ 
fore her. No flowers, no veil, no guests, nor church aisle, <she had 
said in the morning. Now she felt a stranger lack—no friend! Not 
one to get the license. Elsa and Bertha’s sympathetic faces as she 
told them of her great hour had been part of the background of her 
thought. Not a girl to go with her to the bridal moment, to touch her 
hand, or look at her with moist eyes, or fuss over her dressing. They* 
would probably not speak to her—but pass with averted faces if 
she met them in the corridor. 

An isolation like death seemed to close around her. 

She felt her lips quiver, and the big tears creep down her face. 
She put her hand over her eyes, in a vain attempt to shut out her 
desolation, while for a moment she wept hysterically. Then she 
shook herself free, half sobbing as she whispered: “But he is here. 
And I have saved him from blood-poison, as I didi the prince-colbnel. 
Thank God! Thank God!” Then, after a pause, she breathed very 
softly, “He loves me! He is mine.. He is waiting for me to come 
to marry him.” 

She took out her watch to see the time. The little action re¬ 
stored her to the suppression of emotion, that her hospital training 
had taught her. She wiped her eyes, and sat down again more calm¬ 
ly, to wait. 

“If I had known the fraulein would have made such a scene, I 
should have never told her—even if Lord Carnes did urge me to do 
it. It was better for them not to have known. I should not be 


228 


TRAPPED 


wasting time here—when Dallas is waiting—I might be already 
married to him!’* 

(She felt her transforming blush burning her cheeks. 

“Colonel Reintz would have forgiven me—even if my lover is 
English.” She recalled what he had said about her lover at the front. 

Here her thoughts—or rather—her entire consciousness came 
back to Dallas. His unusually handsome face, his splendid lithe 
body; the love of his look, of his voice, of his eyes; the blissful ecstacy 
that seized her as he touched her—rushed upon her and blotted out 
the world, the locked door, the wrathful Germans, and even the poig^ 
nant sweetness of his impatience at her delay-” 

A noise outside her apartment, the slight sound of the key turn¬ 
ing in the lock roused her. She sprang up, to better receive the apolo¬ 
gy she hoped Fraulein Schmidt was returning to make. 

Instead of the fraulein, she was surprised to see Elsa’s face,— 
{frightened and white, peering in the door way. As the portal 
swung open, Margery’s surprise passed into shock. Two soldiers 
stood beside Elsa, and strode into the room noisily. 

“You are the so-called Margarethe Keblinger?” asked the elder 
man harshly. 

“I am,” replied Margery simply, but she felt her heart jumping 
under her uniform blouse. 

“Then you are to consider yourself under arrest.” 

Margery drew back instinctively, in refusal. 

“Come, or we will compel you.” 

Margery’s reason mastered her instinct. She knew enough of 
military life to understand that when a soldier said “C'ome,” it was 
an order, and must be obeyed. 

Without a word, but with startled eyes, she bowed slightly in 
acquiescence, and left the room, preceded by the corporal, who had 
spoken. The other soldier following her. 

As they passed through the door, Elsa caught and pressed Mar¬ 
gery’s hand. “They suspect that you are English! Tell them you are 
not!” Elsa whispered excitedly. 

Margery’s feeling that Elsa would glance at her—if she looked 
at all—with contempt, was so sharply contradicted, by the sympathy 
in the girl’s face, and the warmth of her hand clasp, that her sense 
of lonliness and fright vanished for one second. Then she realized 
what Elsa had said. 

“I am English,” she asserted proudly, “I thought you all knew 
it. Is it a crime?” 

For answer Elsa only stared, her lips working pitiably. Then 
she sank to the floor, her face buried in her lap, sobbing. 

The officer had looked back as Margery spoke. He glanced 
contemptuously at Elsa and laughed harshly. “You’ll think it is a 
crime before you are out of this,” he declared to Margery. 

“The fraulein may be able to prove her innocence,” suggested 


TRAPPED 


229 


the younger jpiard. Margery saw that he was the boy with the in¬ 
jured toe, whom she had talked to when her cards were filled out. 

The soldier led her down the long passage. Margery wondered 
if they would march her out—and along the street, where the crowd 
would gape angrily at her. She realized she was suspected of being 
a spy. She also knew the code if she failed to prove her innocence. 
Somehow she felt paralyzed—she was moving in a sort of blank— 
except her English dread of publicity, winced at the thought of a dis¬ 
graceful march through La Fenelle. 

When they reached the staircase, however, to her infinite relief 
the soldier in front, turned to the left, and ascended the/stairs. They 
passed up four flights. At the first landing the young soldier be¬ 
hind her whispered in her ear: 

“When they question you, be sure to give the same answers you 
wrote on the card." 

Evidently he thought she was guilty, but his intention was kind. 

“That will be easy," she murmured without turning her head, 
for it was true...." 

He touched his fingers to his lips, fell back behind her and his 
lifted hand was twisting his moustache, when the corporal looked 
back sharply. Margery realized that it was a dangerous thing for 
even a German soldier to speak to a suspected spy. 

At the next landing, however, when the eyes of the older soldier 
were out of range, Margery gave the younger a twisted bit of a smile, 
over her shoulder, as thanks. 

When they reached the top of the fourth stairway Margery was 
out of breath, but deeply relieved. She was not going to be con¬ 
fined in the common jail. The orderly opened a door down the hall, 
and stood outside for her to enter. For the second time within an 
hour Margery heard a key turn in a lock—from the outside. That 
faintly rasping sound assembled all the terror and uncertainty of 
her situation, and hurled it at her. It brought back suddenly the 
look of the two men in Belgium, as they were led o,ff to b|e shot asi 
spies. The men whom she had told the prince-colonel did not look 
like coward*, and had refused to have their eyes bandaged. 

That little conversation, as she bent over the royal patient, stood 
out cleanly and suddenly in her memory. His detestation of spies 
came back, bringing a queer horror with it. Just so be would think 
of her! The iron of shame entered her soul—a feeling she had 
never even conceived until this moment—the shame of open, not real 
disgrace. 

Automatically she had gone to the window of her prison-room, 
and now she looked out. It was growing dusk. She knew some casual 
reason had been given the prince-colonel for her non-appearance. 
She felt sure he had not been told that she was under arrest; for 
excitement must still be avoided for him. His singularly winning 
smile—as he pinned the iron cross on her breast that morning, flash- 


230 


TRAPPED 


ed back on her. Could it be only that morning? It seemed weeks— 
then a black period that no time could enclose. Yes, time should be 
counted by heart beats. 

“It is a dormer window,” she found herself saying over and 
over, as she stared at the casement in front of her. Then she sat 
down on the chair beside it, and looked down on the roofs below. 

The tiny park was there, its September bloom blurred in the 
half-light, and across it the windows of the hospital were beginning 
to glow. Behind one of those windows lay Dallas Hope. What 
would he think as the afternoon, and evening, and night passed and 
she did not return? She saw his boyish form stretched on the hos¬ 
pital bed, in the pathos of strength made helpless. (She recalled him 
straining his head weakly, to see her as she passed out of the hospital 
door. He would be straining—just so—all evening and night—to 
watch for her entrance. 

Her thought ran further. He would soon be taken from the 
hospital—unless tetanus set in—his wounds were not serious enough 
to keep him there long. He would be moved out to make room for 
the freshly wounded. He might be sent back somewhere in Germany, 
and she might never be able to find him. She heard again his a- 
doring boyish appeal as he held her hand to his face: 

^Margery! A woman may go to her husband, but not to her 
lover!” 

If she had only taken him up the minute he had proposed an 
immediate marriage—and told the fraulein afterwards! In the 
force and glory of the love within her, she knew she was just begin¬ 
ning to live. The ghastly shade of the spy-trial was beaten back 
by the radiance that breathed through her life. Her blood quickened 
with a new sweetness. She whispered the words that pushed back 
the shadow of death—“He loves me!” The next minute its gloom 
enclosed her—and her hands were ice. Yet the joy of loving and 
being loved welled up again. She knew now what Dallas meant 
when he said that to face death and to still feel that you loved, made 
you so sure. He had faced the end, too, over and over. This came 
to her with a great community of feeling. He seemed to slip into 
her isolation, that appeared complete the moment before, and to share 
it. Truly love was as strong as life! 

She closed her eyes and lived over, every word he said. A new 
humility touched her. What was she that this great joy should find 
her out, and that a man so fascinating and so knightly should love her 
so truly! For his love now had the sacramental flame of sacrifice. 
He was willing to give her up, for her own sake, if the worst happened 
from his wound. His personality, and his effect upon her, seemed 
hovering over her as something she lacked and longed for—a half- 
realized need and dream. This came to her with the shock of dis¬ 
covery. She had no idea that every girl-lover had had the same 
feeling. This was why she could never fall in love with anyone 


TRAPPED 


231 


else, she concluded. Yet she had intended to marry Holt—without 
love. She was so removed from this now that she could not recall 
her emotion. How Dallas’ love had lifted, and glorified her! 

“Death shall not take this love from me,” she concluded. 

'Suddenly, with no warning to herself, she collapsed on the high 
window sill, and sobbed out loud, like a little girl. 

As the fit of weeping passed, the thought of what she should 
have done, drifted out of her mental tumult. 

“Had I obeyed the Indian Prince and told Fraulein the first day 
we were here”—a pause“everything that is happening now would 
have occurred then—no—I should not have met Dallas!” She stopp¬ 
ed short. “This would have made dying easier—far easier—but—I 
would not exchange all that this meeting with him has meant to 
me for—the escape from a thousand deaths!” 

Then she remembered that though he had let all his love rush 
out to her, she hadl told 1 him so little of hers—barely consenting to 
all he had begged of her. Suddenly she hated the artificial code 
that trains woman to withold her heart from her lover in her great 
hour. 

She sprang up. “If I am to die, I must leave him a message of 
some sort.” Her hand went to her fountain pen that was attached 
to her uniform. “If I can only find some paper.” 

For the first time she looked about the bare room. It contained 
only two or three chairs, and an old desk with several drawers. She 
pulled these out hastily. In the bottom of one she found wrapping 
paper, evidently placed there as a protection against dampness, on 
important papers. She tore this into sheets, and in the fleeing gray 
light at the window wrote her first love letter—set her whole heart 
down in simple, heart-breaking words. This she directed plainly, 
with explicit instructions as to its destination, and pinned it inside 
the waist of her uniform. 

Then the practical thought that she should make her will, came 
to her, as she thought of Lady Florence and her kindness to her. 

“I do not want the duke, who never noticed me—nor my cousins, 
to inherit any of my property.” 

On the window-sill as desk, she wrote a few lines to Lady 
Florence, telling her of her danger, her engagement to Captain Hope, 
and asking her to be her administratrix. Them she wrote her will, 
leaving to Lady Florence her mother’s jewels, and to Dallas Hope, Oak 
hurst. 

“His ankle will be stiff,” she wrote, “and he will not be able to 
remain in the army. Wont you go with him to Oakhurst, and under 
those sweet old trees talk about me?” 

Here that sudden weeping seized and shook her again. When 
she was quiet, it was almost too dark to see, but she scrawled a 
postscript to the letter: 


232 


TRAPPED 


“If I am to be shot, I shall not allow them to bandage my eyes. 
I am not a spy, and refuse to die like one.” 

Then she remembered Amos. 

“I have never aslked for his forgiveness!” She paused a moment. 
“I—I will leave him something—then he will understand that I am 
very ^sorry for—'for all the worry I’ve caused him, and that I am 
grateful to him for saving Dallas.” 

She took out her will and added a few lines. After finishing 
this she felt better, and pinned it beside the note to Captain Hope. 
Then she sat down with her chin sinking on her chest, and black 
night—except for the windows of the hospital opposite, and the 
light over the white roof, to show the Red Cross to air-raiders— 
settled upon the city. 

A slight sound in the room curdled the blood at her heart. Some¬ 
thing was moving between her and the door. 


CHAPTER LVII. 

Mice and Men. 

Margery acted instinctively. She caught up her skirts and 
sprang into a chair. The thing, frightened by the girl’s sudden 
movement, scampered away, while the girl strained her eyes to see 
through the darkness. She wanted to scream, but a queer silence 
swelled in her throat. Perhaps she knew nobody would come if she 
did. She listened eagerly for the footsteps of her jailer. 'She realiz¬ 
ed how child-like this was. A minute before she had thought of his 
coming with dread. As she stood, holding breathlessly to the back 
of her chair, the creature again shot across the floor. Never again 
could she think, “quiet as a mouse.” A more noisy animal she had 
never heard. “Possibly there are a dozen of them!” She turned cold 
at the thought.“Evidently they are giving a party,” she tried to be 
gay to herself. “Suppose they should climb into this chair?” 

She knew she should simply lose her senses, and the jailer would 
find her on the floor playing with the mice, as poor Juliet feared to 
play with her fore-father’s bones! 

It seemed hours that she stood there, before she heard the foot¬ 
steps of men. The door was unlocked and light flashed in. 

“What are you doing?” asked the astonished soldier, as he saw 
her standing in the chair, holding her skirts up, pale and trembling. 

“Mice!!” she cried desparately. “Hundreds of them! Oh! I am 
so glad you’ve come!” I’ve been so frightened.” She reminded him 
of a scared baby. 

The real pathos in the scene did not come to her until she saw 
the pity in the man’s eyes. As he looked at her he thought of his 
own little daughter, who shrieked at the sight of a mouse. How could 


TRAPPED 


233 


this girlish, helpless nurse, face the firing squad? As he stared at 
her, she knew he wanted to save her. 

“They wont hurt you," he said gently. Like most Germans, his 
voice was soft. He shuffled his feet, making noise enough to fright¬ 
en a brigade of mice. “There's no danger now; let me help you 
down." 

“Are you going to keep the court waiting all night? Come on I” 
cried an impatient voice from the door. 


CHAPTER LVIII. 

A Vain Officer Evens Accounts. 

The chief of staff and his officers, at the Hotel de Bouge, had 
dined exceptionally well that evening. A champagne, for which the 
establishment had a reputation before the German invasion, spark¬ 
led through the courses. The officers congratulated each other that 
the owner—now with the army of France—had not had time to re¬ 
move the wine, before the Teutons took possession of the city—and 
the cellar. Even the retreat from Paris was mitigated, while drink¬ 
ing such nectar. It was enormously boring to be detailed upon a 
spy trial, and it did not increase good-humor, to withdraw while the 
evening was young—and before the cigars were passed. 

Only the malicious pleasure of seeing the woman, who had morti¬ 
fied him publicity, begging for her life, reconciled Count von Janotha 
to wrenching himself from the dinner table, at the hour 'appointed 
for the arraignment. He was the principal witness for the prosecu¬ 
tion. 

Hell may hold “No fury like a woman scorned," but “hatred, 
malice, and all uncharitableness," are shining virtues, compared to 
the rage of a conceited man when his vanity is wounded. If Mar¬ 
gery had been a princess, nursing incognito, he would have craved 
pardon for his advances. But an English nobody, who earned her 
living! Not even of the lower ndbility—and to snub him! It was 
intolerable. She should learn who her superiors were. No degree 
of beauty—nothing—could excuse such insolence in a working- 
woman ! 

Margery had only the vaguest idea of the kind of trial she was 
to undergo, and no knowledge of her rights—if she had any—as a 
suspected spy. With each descending step of the stairs her heart 
seemed to contract, and her chances lessen. 

“I have absolutely nothing to offer but my word. Is there any 
chance that it will be accepted?" As she recalled it, there seemed to 
be very little evidence against the men in Belgium who faced the 


234 


TRAPPED 


firing squad. Their word had not counted at all. They had pro¬ 
tested that they were innocent. 

As Margery entered the room Dr. Karl von Westarf, who was 
sitting beside Fraulein Schmidt, leaned forward to speak to Colonel 
Zimmerman. 

“I know very little of this case, and I am not the judge, but I 
must mention one circumstance that is unusual. This morning the 
prisoner was decorated by the Kaiser with the iron cross, for saving 
the life of Colonel Reintz. This of course has no bearing—except 
that it will add to the interest of the investigation. 5 ” 

Colonel Zimmerman understood exactly what the surgeon meant. 
A report of the trial would be sent to the highest authorities. He 
made no comment, however. 

Margery took the chair that was offered to her, with a swift 
glance about her. Besides Dr. von Westarf and the fraulein, she was 
surprised to see groups of officers—perhaps twelve in all. She 
thought the astonished, anxious, face of the Flyer—Persuis—looked 
at her, from a knot of lieutenants. But her interest and her glance 
were too casual to be sure. 

On a slightly raised platform, behind a table, sat two men. The 
girl wondered which was to be her judge. Before one of them were 
pens and papers, and he carefully sharpened the pencil he held in his 
hand. 

The officer addressed as Colonel Zimmerman, wore a green shade 
over his eyes, so Margery saw only the lower part of his face, which 
was a pair of ferocious, sinister, moustaches. 

Colonel Zimmerman, with the usual form, opened the case. 

Margery was asked to give her name. Instead of repeating the 
list that had been bestowed upon her by her baptismal sponsors, she 
remembered what the young soldier had advised, and answered, “Mar- 
garethe Keblinger.” 

The presiding officer consulted the printed slip she had filled 
out, and she thanked the boy, mentally, for his caution. All the 
questions that the card covered she answered exactly as she had writ¬ 
ten them out. 

Then the prosecutor stated his case. Margery listened with a- 
mazed horror. Every circumstance and innocent act of hers had 
been twisted into links, forming a chain of the most damaging evi¬ 
dence. 

She had confessed herself an English woman, yet she had come 
to them, claiming to be from Berlin. Wearing the uniform of a Ger¬ 
man Red Cross nurse, and speaking German like a native, she was 
unsuspected, as she knew she would be, and admitted to the honor 
of nursing Colonel Reintz. The very day after her entrance into 
this intimacy with the German army, the Allies began receiving au¬ 
thentic information of the movements and plans of the German 
troops. This, the prosecutor stated had been learned from their own 


TRAPPED 


235 


spies in France—many of whom were women. How the prisoner 
gained and transmitted her information had not been precisely proven. 
For days General von Meyer had been positive that a spy was near 
'headquarters, but the real criminal was unsuspected, and allowed 
the freedom of the city, and of headquarters. 

< ‘‘Two days after her admission into this household, every weak 
position in our army was known to the enemy. Strong attacks were 
•delivered against each point, before we could rush re-inforcements 
to defend it. This could have been made known to the Allies only by 
a spy in high places. There was an English woman in one of the 
very highest places. 

“It is known that she met a gentleman the day of her arrival here, 
in a secluded part of the park.” 

Margery involuntarily gasped, and lifted startled eyes to Count 
von Janotha, who nodded and exultantly expanded his lips in a motion 
too gruesome to be called a smile. This momentary exchange of 
glances was evident to the presiding officers. Margery was in¬ 
stantly conscious of this, and that to them it meant her guilt. 

“The officer who witnessed this meeting,” the prosecutor con¬ 
tinued, “thought it a flirtation, and did not follow it up at the time. 
How many such meetings occurred is not exactly known, but we have 
proof that she went to the park oftener than once. 

“The longed-for opportunity offered itself to this spy—a drive 
to and from Brussels in daylight, and a view of the much-talked of 
destruction in Belgium. She took this hazardous drive of many 
miles for a patient, whose name she did not know. Fraulein Keblin- 
ger goes unchaperoned, risking reputation as well as her life, for 
a stranger! No lady ever took such a drive. We mistook this for 
German patriotism. We now clearly see it was a spy scheme ac¬ 
complishing a double purpose. By an appearance of patriotism 
she could blind us to her identity, and also aid her own country. 

“On reaching Brussels she dismissed her chauffeur, and taking 
the wheel, drove—we don’t know where. Of course she went to the 
apothecary for the serum, because it was necessary to bring this back 
in order to appear to accomplish her errand. Who knows where 
else she went and with what Belgian spies she conferred, what in¬ 
formation she gained or carried? When sb? returned she was com¬ 
pelled to wait for her chauffeur. Just here her well laid plans mis¬ 
carried. Two officers who knew this spy years before, passed her, 
recognized her, and although they spoke and touched their helmets, she 
refused to acknowledge the acquaintance. Pretended she had never 
seen either before.” 

Again Margery gasped. What would he say next? 

“She had imagined herself secure from recognition,” the pro¬ 
secutor went on, “her Red Cross dress, utterly different from her 
gorgeous gowns and jewels, was to serve as a disguise. But she saw 
she was mistaken. She had dared the fates too far. In spite of her 


236 


TRAPPED 


wonderful control,, the color of guilt—as it did a moment ago—dyed 
her cheeks, as the officers saluted her. She became restless and im¬ 
patient to be away. She did not know what might occur if the 
officers told all they knew, before she made her escape to England. 
She returned safely—laughing in her sleeve, as she received the cov¬ 
eted cross of honor.” 

“It should be torn from her breast!” the prosecutor yelled in 
sudden violence, leaping in his chair, and pointing his hand like a 
rending claw toward the iron cross on Margery’s uniform. “It is 
desecration for it to lie above the heart of an Englishwoman—an 
enemy of Germany!” 

The dramatic fury of the speaker electrified the spectators, they 
seemed to move toard the girl with the swell of an angry wave. 

“If she were not a spy,” the prosecutor rushed on, “why did she 
not proclaim it, when the cross of honor was offered her? Had she 
confessed her nationality before that sacred emblem was pinned on 
her, there might be some cause to doubt her guilt.” He turned and 
glared upon her. 

“She remained silent. She has been perfectly safe since the mo¬ 
ment Colonel Reintz decorated her. Who will suspect her if she 
wears the iron cross? Her unholy joy though was short. 

“She saw Count von Janotha return, and her guilty heart quaked. 
He may have met in Brussels the officers who recognized her. In 
desparation she confesses she is English, but nothing more. She 
thinks she can elude any other evidence against her. Her vanity 
whispers that her beauty and her apparent youth will save her— 
if she asserts her innocence.” 

“But this paper,” he placed a document on the table before the 
Judge Advocate, “is the key to the scheme she has played. This 
proves the prisoner is not the person she claims to be. Were this 
our only evidence it is sufficient to prove her a spy. It is the sworn 
statement of three officers in the German Imperial Army. One de¬ 
clares he knows she is English, the other two, that the nurse calling 
herself Margarethe Keblinger is in reality a wealthy widow, whom 
they knew well, and made sentimental offers to, five years ago. She 
then called herself Madame Keblinger.” 

“That was my mother!” cried the girl impulsively rising, with 
outstretched hand, as if averting a blow. 

“Your mother!” sneered Count von Janotha, springing to his 
feet. “Is that the game! You have concocted a good story.” He 
sat down with his big, ugly laugh. 

The judge silenced him, and forbade Margery replying. 

The girl sank back into her seat, but managed to scan every 
face in the court room. Dr. von Westarf was saying something to 
Fraulein Schmidt, who nodded gravely. Intuitively Margery knew 
they believed her. 

In accordance with German law in such cases, the lawyer for the 


TRAPPED 


237 


defence had not seen the prisoner until they met before the bar of 
judgement. He rose and asked Margery all the questions that he 
considered necessary, and she answered. 

Would he be able to break the links of the chain the prosecution 
had forged against her? Or was his defence a mere subterfuge? 
She was keyed too high to put these questions to herself, but their 
substance held her breathless, at every word of the lawyer. 

He called witnesses. Dr. von Westarf and Fraulein Schmidt and 
showed that Margery had been ordered to assist in nursing Colonel 
Reintz on account of her skill, and that she had not applied for the 
position. 

Fraulein testified that the uniforms had been provided by the 
German authorities, because the girl’s English uniforms had been lost 
in the confusion of the retreat of the Allies from Reaux. She had 
received this information from the head nurse in Reaux. She did 
not know if the matron there, knew or did not know, the girl was 
English. iShe admitted she had never questioned the girl about her 
nationality. Then the fraulein volunteered: 

“We have been too deeply concerned about our patient to dis¬ 
cuss trivial matters.” Though she did not meet Margery’s eyes, the 
girl was perfectly sure she and Dr. von Westarf were her friends, 
and would save her from death, if possible. 

A wave of gratitude swept her, and she regretted she had flared 
out at Fraulein that afternoon. 

Dr. von Westarf was called as a witness. He testified that the 
journey to Brussels was not premeditated. The necessity had sud¬ 
denly presented itself. No time could be lost in finding a trusty 
messenger. Margery made the trip in record-breaking time, all things 
considered, and had thereby saved the life of Colonel Reintz. 

The prosecuting attorney arose and tore this evidence to tatters. 
Any officer in the building, he contended, would have been glad to* 
have been sent upon the errand. He showed also, that it was a fool¬ 
ish thing to have allowed a woman to undertake it. He cast 
suspicion upon the testimony of Fraulein Schmidt and Dr. von West¬ 
arf, and criticised their management of Colonel Reintz’s case. He 
suggested that their fitness for such responsibility be immediately 
investigated. Their evident friendship was not helping Margery 
and it was seriously injuring them. 

Each point in the case was presented with German precision, and 
squabbled over, while the girl vibrated between a little hope and ter¬ 
rible foreboding. Finally it all narrowed to a question of her identi¬ 
ty. Her word and her girlish appearance were pitted against the 
sworn statement of the officers. 

The rare gloss of the girl’s hair, and the marvelous texture of her 
skin did not show in the dimly lighted rom. In the open sunshine 


238 


TRAPPED 


the down of her cheeks, her quick leaping color might have saved her. 
In the shadowy, artificial light, she looked almost any age. 

If she were Fraulein Keblinger there was a chance for her life. 
If she were Madame Keblinger, she was guilty—and she knew what 
this meant. 

It was pointed out that the authorities could not write or tele¬ 
graph for further identification, because any one whom Margery 
would suggest might be an accomplice. 

“Do you know any one in the foreign legation?” she was asked. 

“No,” she answered. 

“I have been told,” said Fraulein Schmidt suddenly, “that there 
is a young English officer in the hospital, across the park. The 
truth is the only thing that Colonel Zimmerman wants. If the prison¬ 
er, as she claims, is a great neice of a duke, she may be well known in 
England, and this officer able to identify her. If he does not know 
her, very little time will have been lost, and much saved if she is the 
person she claims to be.” 

It was finally decided to act upon Fraulein’s suggestion, as the 
quickest way of establishing the girl’s identity, and that Dr. von 
Westarf, Count von Janotha and two soldiers should accompany Mar¬ 
gery to the hospital. 

As Margery passed Fraulein Schmidt she let the gratitude swell¬ 
ing her heart leap through her eyes into the older woman’s. The girl 
understand the fraulein had intended the double kindness of estab¬ 
lishing her identity, and letting her speak to her lover. 

So hope of life, and Dallas, rose suddenly out of the darkest 
turning of the trial. 

The fraulein dropped her eyes, her lips pressed grimly shut; her 
attitude to Margery was so forbidding, that those watching the two 
could not feel anything but cold justice had suggested the request. 

Not a word was spoken by the little party as they walked down 
the street, and entered the spacious reception hall in the hospital. 
Dr. von Westarf and Count von Janotha told the nurse who received 
them what was wanted. 

“Yes, there is a young Englishman in the ward to the left,” she 
replied. “The surgeon in charge has just gone to see about him. He 
is desparately wounded, and we fear he will not recover.” 

Margery felt an awful faintness at her heart that her own dan¬ 
ger of death had not brought. Something had happened since she 
left. That something, of course was tetanus! 

“Is he the only English officer in the hospital?” asked Dr von 
Westarf. 

“Yes,” she replied, “I have not heard of any other. But I only 
came on duty at eight, this evening.” 

Dr. von Westarf motioned to the others to follow him, and the 
nurse led the way to the ward, and the patient’s room. 

She opened the door and beckoned the surgeon, and the nurse 


TRAPPED 


239 


in charge, to step into the corridor. Dt. von Westarf and the count 
explained the circumstances. 

“He is desperately wounded/’ hesitated the physician, “and any 
excitement may prove fatal. Still—to save the girl’s life—we might 
risk it, for he may die anyway. Let me speak to him first, though, 
and prepare him, if possible, for the excitment.” 

The doctor left the door ajar as he entered the patient’s room. 
They saw him bend over the long form on the cot, take the man’s 
pulse, and murmur something encouraging. 

Then they heard him say distinctly, “I believe a friend of yours 
has come to see you. Are you perfectly conscious?” 

“Perfectly,” a weak voice replied eagerly, “who is it?” 

“A young lady who hopes that you know her.” Here the surgeon 
swung the door wide and motioned Margery to advance. “Do you 
think you remember her?” 

As Margery moved softly to the cot, she was wondering how she 
could explain not returning sooner, without betraying to the count 
that she had, told the fraulein that Dallas Hope was in the hospital, 
and how she could keep Dallas from disclosing that she had seen 
him earlier in the day. She felt the eyes of the group behind her, 
as if they were boring into her. 

She stopped abruptly, with a strangled gasp. Her eyes met 
those of Amos Russell, who lay stretched on the cot. 


CHAPTER LIX. 

The Idle Word Becomes a Boomerang. 

“Florence! Florence!” Russell’s weak voice rose to a hoarse gasp, 
and he held out bandaged, but unbroken arms to her. His livid face 
was illumined. “Is it you—or a dream?” 

The human mind plays queer tricks at times. For weeks Mar¬ 
gery’s conscience had winced whenever the thought of Amos Russell 
had shot through her. It had been worse since her conversation with 
the English soldiers, though all the time she had been telling her¬ 
self that she was not to blame—and that Amos Russell had not come 
to the front. She had succeeded in pressing the whole experience 
below her conscience thinking. But when Dallas Hope told her that 
afternoon that Amos Russell had saved his life, the shock revealed 
itself more as an explosion finding its way upward in her conscious¬ 
ness, than the sense of encountering a brand new fact. She really 
knew all along that Amos Russell was at the front—and that she 
was responsible for it. The only surprise—a vivid, lifting one— 
was his risking his life to save Dallas Hope—and this, too, she 
understood instantly, was done for her, just as Amos knew she would 
understand the moment the fact was announced to her. Though the 


240 


TRAPPED 


knowledge shook her to the center, the tremendous emotions and 
events that had crowded on her every moment since, had trampled 
it out of her thoughts. Now, her sense of guilt toward Amos, as¬ 
serted itself, erratically, tyranically, above every other fact of life. 
The death peril ahead of her, and even Dallas, were absolutely for¬ 
gotten. 

She did not notice that Amos had called her Florence, nor the 
triumphant glance of Count von Janotha, nor the small painful 
frown of Dr. von Westarf. This was her moment to express grati¬ 
tude to Amos and to ask forgiveness. 

“No, you are not dreaming,” she said softly, sinking beside his 
cot, and taking one of his outstretched hands in both hers. Her old 
radiant smile touched her face. “I want to thank you—on my knees 
—for saving Captain Hope’s life. He told me of your wonderful 
courage....” 

“I was glad to do it for you,” his pain-parched lips tried to smile 
in return. “You understand, not for him—for you? You don’t 
think me a coward—now?” 

“I never thought you a coward,” she cried with soft vehemence, 
“but now I know you are one of the bravest who ever lived—the kind 
the world—has always—called heroes!” 

The poor livid face flushed with pleasure. 

“I am so very sorry—for all I said to you”, Margery hurried 
on. “I never meant a word of it. Oh, please forgive it!” 

In the unexpected excitement of seeing him, and the whirlwind 
of feelings that had been exchanged, in the quick words that had 
rushed upon each other, Margery had had no thought of herself. 
She came back sharply to her situation when the count spoke to the 
patient. 

“Prove to me that you are not delirious by telling me this young 
lady’s name.” 

“Her full name,” added Dr. von Westarf, swiftly, hoping to 
draw Margery—as well as Florence from Russell’s lips. 

Margery suddenly recalled that Amos did not know her real 
name! She rose, turning white, her heart standing still in her 
breast. 

Amos cast a half-embarrassed glance at the girl, before answer¬ 
ing with an effort: “Florence Flemming—Hope, wife of Captain 
Dallas Hope, of the Westmor_” 

“No! No! No! No!” Margery’s protest rang out sharply, as she 
realized what his answer meant to her. “I am not married! That 
was a joke—Amos—a jest! I meant bo tell you better. I went to 
tell you—but you were gone.” 

“Not married! You are not married?” Amos gasped, trying to 
raise himself on his wounded arm. “Then.... ” 


TRAPPED 


241 


The effort was was too much for him. He fainted, and the sur¬ 
geon caught him and straightened him back on his low pillow. 

“Take the girl away!” he said professionally. 

“We have heard enough!” exalted the count. “She is neither 
maid nor widow! She is Florence Flemming, and Mrs Dallas Hope, 
and Margarethe Keblinger, and Madame Keblinger.” He bowed iron¬ 
ically before her, and signaled the soldiers to start the march back 
to the court room. 

“Why did he call you Florence?” Dr. von Westarf asked her 
suspiciously, in a low tone, as he passed her. 

“It is one of my baptismal names,” she replied, “and one that he 
knew me by. I should have written out my full name when I filled 
out my nurses card—and when the judge asked me.” 

“You seem to have as many names as a cat has lives,” taunted 
the count, “it is a pity you can’t exchange with pussy. You may need 
them!” 

The bald meanness of the jest deprived it of any power to hurt. 
Margery ignored the fact that the count had spoken, and they all 
walked down the long hall in silence. 

“There is another English officer, here, who knows me,” said 
Margery to Dr. von Westarf, “take me to him, and he will tell you 
my real name—and that I am not married.” 

“How do you know that he is here?” leered Count von Janotha. 

“I saw him this morning,” she replied simply. 

“Ah! You did! And you fixed it all up nicely together—just 
what should be said, if you were arrested. Fm sorry,” with mock 
gallantry, “but we can’t keep Colonel Zimmerman waiting all night, 
while we worm out pre-arranged evidence for you. Lead on, men.” 

Margery saw that it was useless to say more. As they went along 
the dark street, she suddenly remembered that she had not prayed 
in a long time—except for Dallas to be saved from death. Things 
had gone with ordinary smoothness, and that tremendous need of a 
power beyond her own. which she felt when first facing the terribly 
wounded, had been lifted. She was shocked to find how long it 
seemed since those sincere, intimate appeals, had brought her sus¬ 
taining calm. 

“I have not really thanked God for saving Dallas. Perhaps if 
I had prayed for guidance and help to meet each day, I should not 
have been trapped, in this tangle of circumstancial evidence.' But I 
can pray now to be delivered.” 

She tried to concentrate her mind in sending out her great need 
in a petition. Her brain seemed jangled with echoes of the dreadful 
happenings that had changed the day, into the longest period of her 
life. “There is no use trying to deceive God. He knows I want to 
live—that this is all I have in my soul, and I might as well pray for 
it”—in gasps—“just as I am thinking and feeling.” 

“Oh, spare my life!” she cried inwardly, but none the less in- 


242 


TRAPPED 


tensely. “Don’t let these horrible men prove me a degraded spy! 
I am utterly helpless! Don’t let me be killed when life is sweetest. 
You have given me Dallas—and you have given me love—don’t 
snatch me away from them! (Let him get strong—let me nurse him I 
Let me show him that I love him, before I die!( Let mJe live... /’ 

(Suddenly she stopped praying, and thought, “This is all wrong. 
This is an utterly selfish prayer—just what Abbe' Gerard says are 
not answered. If I am to be shot—and I may be—I should be pray¬ 
ing first of all for God to forgive my sins and receive me into the 
other world—and His tove. If He chooses to deliver me, I should 
pray that my life will be pure, and a Messing to others.” 

A conflict tore her heart as she tried to bring herself to utter 
such a prayer. She wanted to live! Standing within the valley of 
the shadow, she realized the futility of trying to tell God something 
that was not in her own mind or heart. “Oh—I can only say—make 
me able to say, ‘Thy will be done’, for I d'o want to live! I want to 
live!” 

She realized this prayer was sincere. As she prayed it over and 
over a strange calm filled her. She remembered reading that 
when an animal is about to be devoured, a queer numlbness creeps 
over it. She wondered if this were a pre-taste of death—or an ans¬ 
wer to her prayer. 

In spite of her gruesome surroundings Margery was uncon¬ 
sciously feeling a curious spiritual release and rebound since she 
had asked and received forgiveness of Amos Russell. No matter 
What might happen now, that was explained and forgiven. At the 
moment she realized the weight she had borne, by the lightness she 
experience when it was lifted. And now, while not recalling the 
cause—Amos for the moment being forgotten—the relief was still 
hers; confession of her fault was relaxing her. The strain was gone, 
and mentally, she was free to think of other things. 

They were in the Hotel de Ville and ascending the stairs. As 
she mounted each step the queer quiet within her held; yet her de¬ 
termination to fight each accusation, to live, if possble, increased. 
If she were condemned—Somehow she no longer felt panic-stricken 
at the thought. She had struggled out of a terribly icy darkness— 
to a height. It was a chill, isolated height. She could see the terrors 
that lay beneath, but she was above them. 

As'the party returning from the hospital entered one end of the 
long court room, the officers filed out of the anti-chamber and took 
the seats that they had previously occupied. One glance told Frau- 
lein Rachel that Count von Janotha was trihmphant, Dr. von West- 
arf depressed, and Margery—? 

She could not read the girl’s face. Not guilt, nor despair, nor 
hope—but composure and—was it relief? No, it could not be that! 

Count von Janotha’s red moustache grinned at her from the 


TRAPPED 


243 


witness stand. The prosecutor reviewed the evidence, showing the 
points proved against her; 

“She claims to be from Berlin—she is from London. 

“She claims to be a young girl—she has been married a number 
of times, shown by the testimony of German officers, and an English 
officer declaring her the wife of Captain Dallas Hope. Most damag¬ 
ing of all she had claimed to be Fsraulein Margarethe Keblinger, and 
the same officer declares before her last marriage she was Florence 
Flemming, I therefore declare that every contention against the 
prisoner has been proven. She is guilty, and I demand the ver¬ 
dict against her as contained in the indictment. She is a spy.” 

He sat down. 

Margery glanced inquiringly at the lawyer for the defenses. He 
was arranging his papers before him in a neat pile. He had evi¬ 
dently abandoned the case, and was closing up the technical details 
of his part of it. She saw the judge was preparing to speak. She 
knew he was going to pronounce her guilty or instruct the jury to do 
so. 

The flash of thought connected with terrible moments, showed 
her Dallas lying in the hospital oposite—her body being carried away 
from the firing squad—and the present moment the only one in 
which she could fight for his happiness and her own. In an instant 
she was on her feet, and her rich voice was filling the large room with 
her wonderfully musical German gutterals. 

“I am not guilty—-I am no spy” she cried, her tones vibrating 
with magnificent, albiet indignant protest. She faced the men who 
were accusing her. The judge tried to stop her, but he might as 
well have attempted to counter-act a tornado. Her eyes were 
transcending and her whole countenance was angelic in it radiance. 

“All I have claimed is true, and if given time I can prove every 
word 1 . I will not be trapped like an animal! I was born in Berlin, 
and I learned to speak German before I spoke English. My father 
was for years a member of the legation there. I am Arthur Keb- 
linger’s daughter—and only child—and not his widow. My mother 
has been dead for years. I am only a girl, who learned nursing 
because I loved humanity—Not English, nor French, nor German 
humanity, simply humanity.” 

A face loomed suddenly out of the group of officers peering at 
*her It was Colonel Hoeslar. He turned quickly to Count von 
janotha and whispered something. 

Seizing this opportunity, the girl's breeding once more gave her 
the courage and dignity of speech. So aristrocratic, so stately, was 
her bearing, that all listened, as she calmly said: “The evidence 
seems against me, but my full name is Marguerite Florence Gordon 
Flemming Keblinger.” 

Count von Janotha interrupted his conference to toss his head 
in the air with a snort of derision, but Margery went straight on. 


244 


TRAPPED 


‘‘As Florence Flemming I met Lieutenant Russell; we were em¬ 
ployed in the same office before the war began. To tease him I told 
him that I was married, intending to correct the story the next day. I 
never saw him again—alone—until tonight. I am only engaged to 
Captain Hope. I know nothing of the army plans or the movements 
of troops. If I did, I have no way of communicating with the Aliles.. ” 

“You then deny,’’ cried the prosecutor, catching her by the arm 
to interrupt her, “that you met a gentleman in the park?” 

“I do. I did not meet _” 

Count von Janotha darted forward, but Margery continued 
firmly, 

“Did not meet him. He chanced to pass, and stopped to speak 
to me.” 

This statement was received with derisive laughter from all the 
officers. 

“Of course,” shouted the count, “and it would have been im¬ 
possible for you to have given him a paper containing important in¬ 
formation. Here he turned to the judge. “I have another link of 
corroborating evidence. Colonel Hoeslar here recalls meeting 
Arthur Keblinger in Berlin, years ago, as a member of the legation, 
and can add a word.” 

The Colonel was sworn in and testified in a deliberate voice. 

“Arthur Keblinger was a wealthy man, the grandson of a duke. 
He lived in princely style. His wife was absent at the time, but her 
beauty, and jewels were the talk of the place. The Arthur Keb- 
lingers were not the kind of people whose daughters would be em¬ 
ployed in offices, or trained as a nurse. About this I feel perfectly 
positive.” 

The prosecutor rose impatiently, “I demand a verdict of guilty.” 

Margery stared straight before her praying for strength, to 
meet the verdict of death calmly. iShe realized hope was gone. Her 
own spurt of energy had only brought out a more damaging testi¬ 
mony. There was a tumult in her heart, and a buzzing in her ears, 
that prevented her hearing the judge tell her to rise to receive her 
sentence. 

She did not move. She felt stunned. Her face drained of color, 
was rigid as marble. Yet, as in a trance, she saw the fraulein try to 
conceal the fact that she was wiping her eyes. 

Some one assisted Margery to her feet. At the same instant 
a number of soldiers entered the room. 

Margery could not hear what the judge said—that buzzing in her 
ears was so tremendous—but she knew that he was delivering the 
death sentence. She knew, too, that the soldiers were to be her exe¬ 
cutioners and were receiving their instructions. 

Then an officer touched Margery and motioned her to take her 
place behind the soldiers. In doing this she made the movement in- 


TRAPPED 


245 


stinctive to women in distress, she clasped her hands spasmodically 
over her heart. She touched the crisp papers there. 

This recalled her. She gave a ittle gasp, as if beginning to 
breath again. “They may bury me without finding them.” 

She looked toward Fraulein Rachel and saw tears on her sallow 
cheeks. She unpinned the papers, swayed toward the fraulein, and 
pressed them in her hands, as she passed. 

“Will you see that these are delivered to those to whom they 
are addressed? One is to my lover—one is my will? Margery's 
whisper seemed to scrape her throat. 

“Yes, yes. I will!” whispered the fraulein fervently. To Dr. 
von Westarf, she added in a stage whisper that every one in the room 
heard, 

“Why can’t Colonel Zimmerman open these letters and see if 
what she claims be true?” 

“Poo-ph!” refused Colonel Zimmerman out loud. “That is the 
spy’s last trick. They always count on their letters being opened 
and read. That will business wont hold water either. If she had 
wanted to do that, she would have attended to it before leaving Lon¬ 
don. You might just as well tear them up....” 

“No.” please don’t touch them,” implored the girl, extending 
her hand protectingly over them. “Please let them go—to my friends 
—after I am dead.” 

It was wonderful to herself how calmly she spoke the word. 

“She has known for a long time,” thought Colonel Zimmerman, 
“that she might have to die at any minute, and has grown accustomed 
to the idea.” 

At this moment, Margery suddenly thought of Dallas Hope and 
Lady Florence placing flowers on her grave; and sinking into a chair, 
for several seconds, she sobbed violently. 

Count von Janotha and the officers had moved over to another 
part of the large room, and turned on the shaded lights, that over¬ 
hung the tables where the maps lay; General von Meyer might arrive 
at any moment now. The trial to them was only a disagreeable in¬ 
cident that was closed. The woman had risked her life to serve her 
country, and must pay the penalty! She had, too, been foolish enough 
to turn up her nose at him. “Let her die!” thought Count von Jano¬ 
tha. That’s all there was to it! 

Even the frauledn, weeping with the girl, considered her tears 
only a womanly weakness, for Margery had lost in the trial, at every 
point. Yet she believed the girl innocent. For no law was ever enacted 
compelling a woman to believe contrary to her sixth sense. 

The officer in charge of the soldiers, just ready to goose-step 
his men out of the room, thought she was frightened by the squad. 

“Would you prefer having your eyes bandaged now?” he in¬ 
quired. 

Margery controlled herself. She stood up, and dashed her hand- 


24J 


TRAPPED 


kerchief across her eyes. “I am no spy, and I refuse to die like one!” 
she said. 

“When she reaches the spot—” said Colonel Zimmerman, “if she 
prefers to have her eyes unbandaged, the court grants her desire. 
And may the Lord have mercy upon her soul.” 

He closed the Bible upon which the oath had been administered. 
The young officer clicked his heels together, saluted the judge, 
gave a low command, and the soldiers, with the prisoner in the midst, 
started down the aisle toward the door, before which stood the guards. 

General von Meyer, entering from the ante-chamber, went di¬ 
rectly to the map-tables, and one of the staff officers marked 1 points 
for him with tiny flags'. 

The soldiers had nearly reached the door, when the absolute 
stillness, which usually pervaded the building, was broken by a com¬ 
motion in the hall leading directly to the court-room. General von 
Meyer looked up quickly with a disapproving growl, the fraulein 
peeped above her wet handkerchief, and Dr. von Westarf hastened 
forward. 

At this moment the great door swung open violently. The 
guards leaped forward, with quick protests. A majestic figure stood 
steadfast at the threshold. 

His voice had the ring of authority, as he commanded: 

“Stand back! Do not attempt to impede me in the execution of 
my duty!” 


CHAPTER LX. 

A New Witness is Introduced. 

General von Meyer flung from the tables with a fierce oath. 

The officers sprang up with him, and the Count’s loud curses at 
the guards, for allowing the intrusion, leapt above all the commotion. 

The guard’s apparent—but perfectly useless—struggle, was over, 
as they turned full to the doorway. The intruder had entered. 

He was a man, so noble, so filled with the majesty of moral 
strength, so evidently above the average humanity, that the command 
of his gesture had waved the soldiers back as if hypnotized. As he 
moved into the flare of a light near the door, Margery saw he was 
the stranger who had spoken to her twice in the park and on the way 
from Brussels. 

Colonel Zimmerman rose, and with one foot off the platform, 
paused as if spellbound. Genreal von Meyer strode angrily forward; 
but when his eyes fell fully upon the stranger’s face he stopped, and 
watched the intruder move with quiet dignity to the group about the 
judge’s desk. As he passed the soldiers with Margery, he paused 


TRAPPED 247 

with a motion of command, and they turned and followed him down 
the aisle. 

As the girl walked back with the soldiers, the tension of the 
moment before the prince’s entrance seemed a riven nightmare. “They 
obey his slightest gesture. Yet the prosecutor swore he was not in 
the city,” she thought indignantly. 

Then she noticed the prince was more elaborately dressed than 
when she saw him before. He was now wearing robes of state 
from his striped fehta to his slippered feet. She had not before rea¬ 
lized how grandly erect, was his tall figure. 'His peculiiiarly black 
hair fell about his shoulders, and his long black beard parted upon his 
breast. “His face seemed the incarnation of thought and power, 
yet imbued with a glorious hope. His eyes alive with soul fire, yet 
softened by love to infinite tenderness,” gazed a moment pitingly and 
silently upon the group. The excited men stood a moment, in awed 
Silence. The prince’s hesitation implied a regret that they, not he, 
might be blasted when he spoke. 

Behind him, wiping the perspiration from his red face, a fat, gray- 
haired man, thumped on a wooden leg. He had paused to explain de¬ 
ferentially to the guards; but he was still rubbing the small patch 
of hair on his bald head, with nervous apology. As he overtook the 
prince, and faced the officers, he saluted, before again mopping his 
face. 

Behind the old man, glided a swarthy boy, in Oriental costume. 
If the situation was equally strange to him, he did not indicate it 
by the quiver of an eyelash. As the old man saluted, the youth 
stopped for a profound salaam, and folding his arms, took his stand 
behind Prince Mavalanka. 

Colonel Zimmerman was the first to shake off the queer spell 
that had emanated from the stranger. Perhaps his obtuseness of 
mind, as well as his blindness, helped him here. 'Though the whole 
scene transpired in half a minute. 

“Who are you?” he demanded angrily. 

“I am known here in Germany,” replied the stranger courteously, 
“as Herr Mohini Doud. My real name in this incarnation matters 
not.” 

“This is no time for metaphysics,” thundered General von Meyer. 
He lunged forward as if he were going to order the soldiers to remove 
the man—yet something about this remarkable intruder seemed to 
make this impossible. “Why are you here?” he asked instead. 

“To inform you” replied Mohini Doud, “that Marguerite Flor¬ 
ence Gordon Flemming Keblinger is not a spy.” 

The girl gasped, as he pronounced! distinctly and with quiet dign¬ 
ity, each of her names in proper succession. 

“You know her then?” cried Colonel Zimmerman. 

“She is the friend of a friend,” replied the prince. “And twice 


248 


TRAPPED 


within the last week I have held a brief conversation with her, here 
in La Fenelle.” 

The one-legged man thrust himself forward to speak, but the 
East Indian held up his hand commandingly, and the German with 
his mouth open, remained' silent. 

“Where are your proofs of this woman’s innocence?” demanded 
Colonel Zimmerman. 

“The presence of the real criminal,” replied Mohini Doud briefly. 

All looked quickly around the room. No one else had entered. 
There was a stealthy silence in which the sense of suspicion crept. 

“It might be Count von Janotha,” thought Margery wildly. 

“Where is the spy?” demanded Colonel Zimmerman. 

“I am he,” replied Mohini Doud calmly. 

“You!!” came in a breath from every throat. 

“I am he.” Turning to General von Meyer he continued: “I have 
often been present at your most private consultations; with the Em- 
porer in Berlin; at the front; on the East, and West. I know your 
weak and strong points, and every intended movement of your armies. 
I know all your plans ; and have given them to the Allies.” 

“I be d_!” exclaimed Colonel Zimmerman, falling back into 

the chair from which he had partially risen. 

“Shoot him down like a dog!” yelped Count von Janotha, leaping 
forward, and struggling to draw his arms. 

“No, no, no!” screamed the old man, his aged voice cracking, his 
excitment blotting out the strict code of the German army. “He is 
crazy! He has no mind at all! The war has set him mad. He was 
in Baden Baden when it began. Here, these papers prove it—you see 
my name on them, Franz Reinhardt—signed before the authorities!” 
Franz shakily extended a document, with official signatures “And he 
has never left Baden Baden—even for an hour—until yesterday. He 
has not been to Berlin—nor to the front. I have waited on him, and 

he paid me these-” He showed five gold picees, “one for each 

week. You know gentlemen I could not have earned it—otherwise.” 

Colonel Zimmerman stopped the old man, and glanced through 
the papers, and handed them to General von Meyer, with the remark 
that they proved what the old soldier said. The General was ex¬ 
amining the gold coins. 

“They are Indian coins,” he observed, and dropping his voice 
added, “Let them both talk, we may get what we want to know.” 

“I fought under the Emporer in 1870, and lost my leg,” Franz 
continued, “and for years I have been porter in the hotel where my 
lord has apartments. Because he was an East Indian and in poor 
health, instead of being ordered away or to prison, the Government 
kindly allowed him to remain in Baden Baden, with me as his guard. 

I swear to you by the Kaiser that until yesterday he has not left that 
place. He has not even walked in the garden without my eyes upon 
him. Unless that girl was in Baden Baden last week—or this week— 



TRAPPED 


249 


he did not see her. But I have accompanied him every time he has 
left the hotel, and I know that she did not see him. He is a liberal 
gentleman—but he is a lunatic.” 

“Have you seen this gentleman before?” asked Colonel Zimmer¬ 
man of Margery, indicating the prince. 

“Tell him the truth,” prompted Mohini Doud, with an encourag¬ 
ing smile. 

“I have met him three times and talked to him a few minutes on 
each occasion,” Margery replied. 

“When?” 

“This morning....” 

“It is a lie!” cried Franz again, excitedly, “an awful lie! She 
could not have met him this morning, for we were on the train a 
hundred or more miles from here.” Franz nodded toward the 
prince, “He was ill. The berth had to be made down, and he lay 
there until aroused by Adoo to change cars.” 

The swarthy boy behind the prince made a low salaam in ac¬ 
quiescence, when Franz said “Adoo.” 

Margery stared at Franz, with a strong doubt of his sanity; but 
he was too red, and rugged and common-place to doubt. At the same 
moment she caught the eye of Dr. von Westarf, studying the prince 
professionally, and she knew from his expression that he, too, was 
not finding anything to prove the lunacy that Franz claimed. 

“The prisoner does not in the least object to lying,” remarked 
the count carelessly, “as we have already proved. This tale of their 
meeting this morning is just one more added to the list.” 

“It is not a lie,” said Mohini Doud kindly to him, “I did talk to 
her here, this morning.” 

Franz clapped his hands to his ears, and stamped about wildly, 
looking quite the lunatic. 

“Will you allow the girl to go?” the prince gravely asked Colonel 
Zimmerman. 

“You have not proved her innocence, you have only admitted 
your own guilt. No doubt you are confederates.” 

The prince's eyes filled with indignation—then infinite sadness. 

He turned to General von Meyer. “I shall be obliged to give 
details for you to understand that it is I, not she, who should be your 
prisoner.” 

“Do you know what your statement involves?” asked Colonel 
Zimmerman, evidently believing the prince was unbalanced. 

An exalted expression touched the face of Mohini Doud as he re¬ 
plied: “Far better than you can realize it. To you it means the 
firing squad, and the delusion death. To me it means perfect con¬ 
cord between me and my conscience; perfect obedience to the will of 
my master; and a knowledge that I have performed well, what I am 


250 


TRAPPED 


sure I came into the world this time to do. If my master willed it 
otherwise, you would have no power over me.” 

“Don’t you see he is crazy?” cried Franz. “Always talking of 
his master. He has no master. He is a prince in India. Jadiz, his 
other servant, told me so, while he wept and prayed at our departure. 
But they are all mad!” Franz made a wild gesture with his old hat. 
“They have nearly run me crazy!” 

“Why waste time with these East Indian lunatics?” snarled the 
prosecutor. “Send them to jail until their cases can be investigated, 
and execute the order of the court on the prisoner.” 

At a signal from the judge the officer advanced and stood at 
attention before the desk. 

Mohini Doud perceived his hour had come. If possible he must 
save the girl. If not they must die together. 

“I am not demented,” he exclaimed, his authoritive voice demand¬ 
ing attention; “no one present, nor in this part of the world, is less so 
than I. You are guessing, while I Know the trend of events.” 

As the guard at the door had for some reason permitted the 
entrance; so now the group, awed by an uncomprehended power—the 
loftiness of his countenance, or the magic of his voice, listened. 
Fraulein Schmidt ceased weeping, and began to pray that this ma¬ 
jestic prince might save the life of the' girl whom she had helped to¬ 
ward winning a decoration from the Kaiser. Her deepest hope was 
that the Kaiser might not be disappointed in her judgment. Later, 
none could explain why they had stood and listened. 

“The sensual cognition is not the only mode of perception;” began 
the prince, his glowing eyes contradicting the remoteness of his 
phrases. “I can assure you by personal experiences that prevision is 
congition a priori, in the highest sense of the word. The Mehamah 
sees more than the physical eye. This girl knows nothing of your 
plans. I have given the information that has enabled the Allies to 
push you back from Paris. 

“You confess this?” thundered General von Meyer. 

“And more—hear me—” 

“Let him speak,” growled the general, “If it is only the ravings 
of a maniac, we must know all.” 

“The day Germany declared war,” said Mohini Doud, in a voice 
that thrilled, “I was in Baden Baden with my friend Lord Carnes of 
England. I knew his country would enter the conflict, and felt this 
a glorious opportunity to prove to him the truth of all I had for 
years tried to tell him. Had I been satisfied with one convert I could 
have gone with him across the channel, and given the demonstration 
there, as well as here. But—forgetting the humility becoming an in¬ 
carnated soul—I longed to do a grand—a mighty work. Not only was 
Lord Carnes to be convinced, but through him, an unbelievable world 
should be taught the power and beauty of our religion. In my im¬ 
patience I began the Herculean task without the sanction of my be- 


TRAPPED 


251 


loved Guru—my master. My plan seemed so simple yet so grand, 
my purpose so unselfish, that waiting for his approval appeared use¬ 
less. My wish was to hasten the day when all mankind will know 
this world as one inseparable whole, and understand the unity and 
interaction of all things, when the love of God and the Brotherhood 
of men shall be established in the Kingdom of God. I wished to 
prove the soul is not only immortal and divine, but that her powers 
are not lost when she incarnates in a physical body, and that she 
has other sources of perception than the physical senses.” 

He glanced from General von Meyer to Dr. von Westarf and back 
to Colonel Zimmerman as he explained: “prevision belongs entirely 
to the soul; ’to the transcendental being which stands above time and 
space, because it masters both.’ I felt that if I could prove this to a 
sorrowing, groveling earth, it would be worth eons of pain.” 

He looked again in the faces about him. Except for Dr. von 
Westarf, he might have been speaking in an unknown tongue. Yet 
the inate magnetism of the man, saved him from interruption. 

“Your German scientists must faintly comprehend that so long 
has the world been trammeled by the cares and desires of the fle/sh, 
that the joys of the soul, to many are unknown. The spirit—the real 
self—is clogged by matter. I longed to break this thralldom; and 
make known the pleasures of the mind, and the high quality of the 
soul. This demonstration in a sin-filled world, would, I knew, require 
profound prayer, self mastery, and renunciation. But transfigura¬ 
tion was my goal, and I was glad to suffer.” 

“With most of us it is only when the functions of the body are 
partially latent—as in sleep—ecstacy—or approaching death—that we 
obtain glimpses of this soul power. If we all knew, and all lived the 
soul life, the Kingdom of God and Brotherhood of man would be 
established here!” 

He paused, and pressed his hand hard upon his breast, as if in 
pain, and grew visibly paler. Margery saw the black shadows under 
his eyes, and that his stately form was positively emanciated. She 
wondered if it had come through fasting and long nights of prayer. 
As he talked of the Brotherhood of man, the conversation between 
Lords Carnes and Dalhousie drifted back upon her, like a strain of 
half-forgotten music. She could understand better now what he 
meant. Her mind, as well as her heart, had been quickened by living 
for others. She could not yearn for the intense spirituality that the 
prince yearned for, but she knew she could never return to the frivo¬ 
lous desires she had found so entrancing. She really knew that 
the joy of renunciation had no equivalent in her old world. But 
Mohini Doud was speaking again: 

“We know the world is one inseparable whole. The soul being 
a part of this organism, by prevision, may read the thoughts of others. 
But only those who understand the law of Karma, who realize the 
love of God, and live according to the dictates of our ritual, are enabled 


252 


TRAPPED 


to read the inmost thoughts of all men. Therefore they doubt. My 
purpose was to restore to man this belief. When man understands 
that every act, plan, thought, is known—or may be known—to all 
the world, crime will cease. No man will steal—not even a country— 
when he knows the earth will brand ham: ‘Thief/ The wrong-doer 
hopes his sin will not find him out. No man will wrong his neighbor, 
when the mind of all men will condemn him. ‘The mind current 
would sweep him from the earth back to the lowest beginning/ It is 
this that shall reform the world, not punishment. When all believe 
with us, then will armies be useless. It was to prove this, to a 
doubting world, that I remained in Baden Baden.” 

“Granting all this gibberish be true,” interrupted the general 
angrily, “What bearing has it on the prisoner’s guilt?” 

“Every possible bearing,” replied the prince impressively. 

“Every day since Lord Carnes left me, a letter from me con¬ 
taining an account of the latest movement of the German forces, and 
every important order or decision of the German Government, has, 
at an appointed hour, been placed upon his desk.” 

An involuntary surging of the little group, and a gasping silence, 
followed this statement. Fraulein Schmidt, leaning forward, forgot 
to pray. 

“For one hour that letter lay before him—visibly—while he copi¬ 
ed it,” continued the prince quietly. “Then it faded out of existence.” 

Colonel Zimmerman had seized pen and paper, “How did you mail 
it to him—or telegraph it, for some one else to write and mail?” 

“It was not mailed nor sent by human aid,” replied the prince. 
“Only the initiated know how I delivered it to him.” 

“There is treason in high places,” Colonel Zimmerman turned to 
the general. 

“From whom did you gain your information?” demanded Gen¬ 
eral von Meyer. 

“From original sources always. I heard or saw it. At night 
when you and your staff discussed the events of the day, or made 
plans for the morrow—I was there, also, taking notes.” 

“You—there!” stammered the general. “Now we are getting to 
it. I suspected there were private passages in these thick walls. 
But where were my guards—'that an English nurse could let 
this man into the building?” he signaled a soldier to come forward. 

“Your guards are doing their full duty,” the prince broke in, 
“If they had seen me they could not have stopped me, for my physi¬ 
cal body lay in Baden Baden; and good old Franz kept rigorous watch 
that it did not escape his company. They thought there, that I slept.” 

Franz clutched at his bald head again in frantic nervousness. 

General von Meyer turned scarlet. “You are here to ridicule me, 
are you?” he yelled furiously. “I shall waste no more time on you..” 

Mohini Doud reached him by a single stride, and whispered some¬ 
thing in his ear. 


TRAPPED 


253 


The scarlet receded from the General’s face, he fell back a step, 
his startled eyes fixed on the prince as he breathed hoarsely: 

“You know that, too!” 

“More,” asserted the prince calmly. “When you and an officer 
from the eastern front consulted with the Kaiser, the crown prince 
and the Emporer of Austria, I was present then.” 

General von Meyer stared as if galvanized. 

“I was witness to that stormy scene between the Crown Prince 
and the Kaiser, before the war was declared.” Prince Mavalanka con¬ 
tinued. “The Kaiser mentioned it to you, but he did not tell you 
half that was said. I have it all on paper.” 

The general only stared—and frowned. To speak would be to 
admit that which could not be admitted. 

“Neither guards, nor doors, nor locks, can bar me out;” declared 
Mohini Doud. He was the only unexcited person in the room. He 
stood straight and noble, as a prophet of old might have stood, When 
proclaiming a vision. 

General von Meyer sank into a chair, and Colonel Zimmerman 
struck the table with his fist. 

“Jail him! If he is insane—he’s dangerous!” he cried. 

“You can’t jail his mind,” said Dr. von Westarf, quietly. “I 
have dipped into East Indian mysticism; it is very baffling.” 

“The fact that he says what he does, whether it is true of not, 
fits him for the firing squad. He should be shot without trial. Let 
the two die together,” shouted count von Janotha. 

The prince noticed him no more than a St. Bernard dog would 
an excited, tiny spaniel. 

“Until a few days ago,” the prince went on, “I had never heard 
of this young lady. Then my astral self discovered her danger. 
Knowing she would be suspected of having disclosed to the enemy 
that which I had, while Franz was guarding my body apparently 
asleep upon the couch, my astral body met her in the tiny park, and 
warned her.” 

“That was not your real self?” asked Margery, forgetting she 
was a prisoner under death sentence. 

“Yes—it was my real self—minus the corporeal body. The real 
self, is the soul.” 

He turned to General von Meyer and Dr. von Westarf, his face 
suddenly illumined: 

“It was to prove this power of the soul to act without the body— 
to prove it to Lord Carnes, that I undertook this stupendous task. 
Also to end this war. By giving this information you would quickly 
be pushed back to your own frontier, and peace would have to come. 
The Allies do not wish to destroy Germany.” 

“Oh,” cried Margery impulsively, “if this were your great pur¬ 
pose, why did you risk it, by coming here to save my life? It were 


254 


TRAPPED 


better I died a thousand times, than that this fearful conflict should 
continue!” 

Suddenly she remembered how she had disregarded his request 
to make it known that she was English, how he had assured her it was 
more important than she could understand. Yet how grandly he had 
refrained from reproaching her for her thoughtlessness. He read 
her remorseful heart, and with a tender smile said: 

“Don’t grieve, little one. It is well with me. I have talked 
with my beloved Guru, and now see wherein I, too, was wrong.” 

“Evolution for the present is slow, but we must submit to it. I 
sought to force a revelation on an unbelieving world, before it was 
ready for it. My ambition was holy, but premature. I was seeking 
to do what is reserved in the womb of time for another. Perhaps.. ” 
ineffable hope radiated from his face—“in some future incarnation 
this great happiness may be mine.” 

Again he pressed his left hand hard upon his breast. With his 
right, he began to remove from the long chain that encirced his 
neck, a small platinum key. 

“What has been done must not be lost to the world,” he con¬ 
tinued, gasping. “My Guru has granted me this untold bliss. This 
incarnation has not been in vain.” With fingers trembling with 
emotion he handed the key to the surgeon. “Dr. von Westarf, open 
my desk, and in a drawer you will find the papers proving all I have 
said is true. Each one is dated, even the hour given, when I visited 
the army posts, or different cities, where important consultations 
were taking place, or orders were being executed. Private conver¬ 
sations between high authorities are there recorded. Lord Carnes 
has a paper corresponding to each one you will find there. When 
this war is over, promise me that you will do with them as I intended 
—that you will not compare them, but make them public.” He turned 
here, to Colonel Zimmerman and General von Meyer, “I came to Ger¬ 
many as the center of scientific investigation, and as soon as peace 
was declared, I intended at once to submit my papers to proper au¬ 
thorities; prove that I had not left Baden Baden, or held material 
communication with Lord Carnes. Lord Carnes was to submit his 
papers in England, simultaneously. If this were done, no reasonable 
man could doubt the truth. The soul’s emancipation would be won. 
The next step in evolution taken. And man, a little lower than the 
angles, should not live by bread alone.” 

He paused a moment as if for breath. 

“Although the information I furnished, had aided the Allies to 
win the war, the publication of THE BOOK in both England and Ger¬ 
many, would prove there was no shame in defeat, no glory in success; 
—for a higher power than cannon, air-ships, submarines or military 
genius, had ended this, the last wan The Book would have present¬ 
ed the incontestable truths of the experiment. Germany, as a reward 
for momentary defeat, should have had the lasting triumph of iis- 


TRAPPED 


255 


suing in the Golden Age, of which man has dreamed'. From being 
first in war, she would have become first in Everlasting Peace. But 
now.... ” 

Unspeakable anguish convulsed his face; his piercing eyes, look¬ 
ing straight before him, seemed fixed upon a vision of the future, 
and his voice wavered with pain: 

“I see armies—great armies—marching, marching—Other coun¬ 
tries are coming into this war—the terror reaches—all nations of 
earth—and new instruments of destruction—always of destruction— 
are brought forward. The land is strewn with dead— The dead! 
The dead!” his tone thrilled with horror; and his eyes upon vacancy 
turned from left to right, above him, below him. Then his gaze 
rivited again upon a single spot. “I see men digging—digging! liv¬ 
ing the earth like moles! The land, the sea—the air, given over to 
destruction! Ah! Woe! Woe! Woe!! I could have saved the earth this 
suffering. But now_” 

Agonized hopelessness turned his face ashen. His voice was a 
queer whisper, and seemed to echo through the silent room, “Now it 
must go on to the bitter, hopeless end. Millions—millions— will be 
sacrificed!!” 

He paused, and extended both hands, with his eyes still fixed 
upon that vision of the future. 

His audience stood transfixed, they scarcely breathed, so trag¬ 
ically impressive were his tone and attitude. Then the anguish 
gradually faded from his countenance, leaving it blanched. But it 
was filled suddenly with a perfect peace, as he exclaimed: “My Guru!” 

He waited a moment as if listening, while ineffable joy lit up 
his pale face. Then turning slightly, with his eyes still on space, 
a warm smile curving his handsome lips, as he murmured softly: 
■“All is well with me, Fareweljl, my friend, Farewell!” 

He stepped forward, tottered, and before any one could reach 
him, fell upon the floor, a heap of goreous robes. 


CHAPTER LXI. 

Prince Mavalanka Returns Whence He Came. 

Lord Dalhousie glanced at his watch, and crossed the hall to 
Lord Carnes apartment. 

“It is time for us to go to the station to meet Florence. The 
train from Calais... .My heavens—Robert! What is the matter?” 

Lord Carnes lay back in his easy chair white, and, for the moment 
was unable to reply. Lord Dalhousie touched the bell, reached his 
friend at a stride, and catching the clammy hand that hung limply, 
pressed his fingers to his pulse. 

“My friend, Prince Mavalanka,” whispered Lord Games, as soon 


256 TRAPPED 

as he could speak, “is dead.” Then he corrected himself, “Has passed 
into the other life.” 

“Dead! Not dead!” cried Lord Dalhousie amazed, and looking 
around for the telegram that had brought the bad news. At this 
moment the man answered the bell summons, and Lord Dalhousie, 
with a gesture indicating Lord Carnes, who lay almost fainting in 
his chair, ordered brandy. 

“He has just told me of it,” announced Lord Carnes, still under 
his breath, and looking as if the end of all things had come. 

“Told you! Why Robert—You must be dreaming....” 

‘I did fall asleep. But is it more remarkable than other things 
that have happened? I—I am sure it is true ” 

The man servant reappeared with the brandy, and Lord Carnes 
took it from Lord Dalhousie and drank it off at a gulp. The faintest 
life tint returned to his chalky face; and with painful breathing and 
grief-stricken eyes he continued. “The war will now go on to its 
tragic close. The advance of the Allies will end to-morrow. I can 
give them no further help.” Burying his face in his hands he wept 
as only a hopeless, over-strung, weary, man can weep. Between sobs 
that shook his frail body, he said, “Bertram... .you are right. Loss 
of identity is—is horrible. My—my friend’s religion may appeal 
to personal ambition—he has the hope of returning, and in some 
future life accomplishing what was wonderfully begun by him in 
this incarnation. But—but—to me, he is lost forever!” 

Lord Dalhousie looked at his old friend, bowed in such hope¬ 
less grief, with a tenderness that for a moment groped—seeking 
just the right words, yet too full of emotion to find exactly what he 
wished. But this was an opportunity not to be lost. It was now 
or never to convince him. “Robert,” he said very gently, “this phil¬ 
osophy—for it is not a religion—cannot support a heart-broken man 
—nor illumine death.” He paused, and Lord Carnes nodded. “But 
the light still shines from the open sephulchre.” His big voice quiv¬ 
ered. “I have no occult proofs—but I have what is far better, sim¬ 
ple faith. My God’s purposes, do not hang on the feeble success of 
any plan, however ingenious. This war will find its end—in God’s 
time—and in His hand it will accomplish good. My faith is as 
steadfast to-day as it was yesterday; and it will be surer—with all 
my failings—as I pass on through this uncertain, grim day. There 
is victory in the Christ! We that believe—can await its appearing. 
All our sins—and lack of living the Christ life—does not shut us oft 
from mercy when we cry. To His vast mercy—the mercy of a man 
who could die for men—we can trust—even your friend. His great 
Life has led the world through greater straits than thisi, This is my 
comfort—and the only comfort human nature has ever had. It can 
be yours to-day.” There was a moment’s pause, then Lord Dal¬ 
housie continued: “This war is for the regeneration of the world 
—socially as well as spiritually. And I fear it will not end until 


TRAPPED 


257 


that is accomplished. We will come out of it purified as by fire— 
unselfish, and recognizing all men as brothers and equals before the 
law. But this change can not be made in a few weeks or months. 
It will take.... ” 

A hurried knock on the door startled the old men. 

It was flung open, and Lady Florence entered, with Mr. Holt 
following. 

Lord Dalhousie tried to check the countess’ eager questions. He 
felt, just then, that Lord Carnes had had all he could bear* 

“No more news,” he said gravely, after greeting them both. 

“Yes,” said Lord Carnes, “my friend is dead, in La Fondle!” 

Mr. Holt suggested that something might be learned at official 
headquarters, and perhaps he could do this more quickly than any 
one else. He left the room before the others fully understood his 
intention. 

Lady Florence, with a woman’s sympathy, and an English¬ 
woman’s composure, ordered something for them to eat. “Perhaps,” 
she suggested, “Mr. Holt may find a way for us to go immediately 
on, to-night; and if we have a little refreshment, Lord Carnes may 
feel able to go too.” 

Lord Carnes drank the bullion that was served, and in the half- 
broken talk, he admitted that the telegram sent to Lady Florence was 
a message from Prince Mavalanka telling what was to happen to 
Margery. 

Though the countess tried to conceal her relief, it was evident 
that she felt reassured the moment she heard that the Indian Prince 
had sent out the warning report. She flashed a look at Lord Dal¬ 
housie. 

“Perhaps” she said, “Margery may not be in such danger....” 

She was interrupted by Holt rushing in without knocking, his 
English calm gone. 

“They have just received a wire from La Fenelle, saying a 
young nurse, there, was being tried as a spy—the information had 
leaked out. But... .the Allies are taking the town! We can catch 
a special train there in five minutes. They are rushing it out to 
take a hospital force from Reaux on to La Fenelle, to care for the 
wounded.” 

Lady Florence leading the way, Lord Dalhousie half carrying 
his friend, Holt and the servants scuttling out with the baggage, they 
were a unit, moving into the hall and crowding down the steps to 
Lord Carnes’ waiting motor. 

***** 

At that same instant in the court room at La Fenelle, the tele¬ 
phone rang violently, followed by the clatter of hoofs on the pave- 


258 


TRAPPED 


ment beneath the windows of the Hotel de Ville. A moment later 
Captain Persuis burst into the room crying: 

“The Allies are taking the city!” 

Instantly all was confusion. 

“The prince! The prince!” cried Fraulein Schmidt, springing 
up from her knees, where she had been trying to help Margery ad¬ 
minister a stimulant to Mohini Doud. “The Kaiser will hold us 
responsible!” 

“The prince!” echoed Dr. von Westarf, “Order the swiftest 
ambulance at once.” He and the fraulein disappeared together—from 
Margery’s eyes. 

General von Meyer gave the order for his motor, and gathering 
up maps and papers, hurling out curses and giving commands at every 
stride, he and his staff and Colonel Zimmerman, dashed out the door. 

“Will you try my taube?” Captain Persuis asked Count von 
Janotha. 

“No—my auto is at the door. But these spies?” He pointed to 
Margery still kneeling by the prostrate East Indian, and Adoo, who 
was watching the count intently. “He may be upon one of his fam¬ 
ous excursions; while she.... ” 

He drew his pistol, and before any one could guess his intention, 
he sent a bullet through the heart of Mohini Doud, and turned to fire 
at Margery. Captain Persuis leapt toward him with a cry; but 
Adoo—with the spring of a lithe jungle beast—was upon him, bury¬ 
ing his fingers in the count’s red throat. The weapon fell from the 
inert fingers. 

Margery screamed, and sprang to her feet. Captain Persuis 
and the one-legged guard struggled with Adoo, and finally loosened 
his clutch from the count's neck. At the same instant the boy sud¬ 
denly stood off, his hands hanging. Then he raised them with a vig¬ 
orous gesture, as, in broken German he cried: 

“Take him away! Take him away! It is my master's will 
that I should not kill him. I will do him no harm.” 

Persuis and the stout old German lifted the half-dead count and 
carried him heavily from the room, leaving Margery gazing at Adoo 
—who was weeping beside his dead master—and wondering what she 
should do. 

Captain Persuis appeared at the. door and beckoned to her. 
She ran down the long hall to him. 

“Let me take you somewhere.” he said. 

“How kind,” she exclaimed. “But you may be captured.” 

“Not I.” he laughed gaily. “I turned the count ever to the 
guards who were still in the lower hall_’ 

“If you will take me to the hospital—’’Margery interrupted 
knowing minutes were costly to the sportsman-like flyer. 

But first she composed the body of her friend, and promised Adoo 


TRAPPED 


259 


to find a place of safety for him. Then she returned to Captain 
Persuis. 

On their way to the hospital, she told him that she expected to 
marry Captain Dallas Hope on the morrow, andj received a message 
of congratulations for her lover. At the door she sent her love to 
Elsa; and with a mischievous glance said: “I hope you both will be 
well and exceedingly happy when the war ends.” 

He gravely thanked her, and was gone. 

Margery at once inquired the way to the ward where Captain 
Hope had been carried after the operation. The nurse in charge 
told her he had stood the ordeal well, but when Mahgery started to 
enter the room the nurse added: 

“Towards evening he became so restless that we were compelled 
to administer an opiate. He is now asleep; and I have orders that 
he is not to be disturbed. I think he will be very much improved by 
morning.” 

Margery nodded understandingly. The resilience of youth is in¬ 
explicable. A few moments before the entrance of the East Indian 
prince she was a hopeless woman, trapped in a train of lies and fac¬ 
ing a death sentence. Now her happiness leapt upon her with a 
force that was almost a pain. 

“If Amos is also better, my cup of joy shall be brimming over,” 
she thought, as with a thankful heart she turned towards the corridor 
leading to the room where Lieutenant Russell lay wide .awake. His 
eyes were on the ceiling, and he was wondering how Florence Flem¬ 
ming chanced to be in this town, and if the web of fate would once 
more entangle their young lives. 


CHAPTER LXII. 

Happiness at Last. 

Margery found Amos lying so quietly, flat on his bed, that she 
could not help but feel that he was better. He smiled at her and 
whispered: 

“I was afraid I had dreamed that you were here!” 

The girl took his hand in hers, and stroked it gently, as she re¬ 
plied: “I was detained. I could not possibly return until now. I 
have come as soon as—as I was allowed. Bht I have been thinking 
of you, and hoping you were improved.” 

“I am,” he replied confidently. “All the pain is gone. I am 
getting well.” He spoke in gasps. “And I am glad;—for I have 
been happy since entering the army—so very happy. I did not know 
that life contained so much. It is far better—than London. If I 
had been killed, instead of only wounded—it would have been worth 


260 


TRAPPED 


—enlisting for. I want to stay in it—until the end. Then, of 
course, I will—go back—to the office—and my career.... ” 

He plaused, for breath. With his dark eyes fixed anxiously upon 
her face, he half-asked, half-asserted, “And you—like me now?” 

Margery’s eyes flooded with tears. 

“I have always liked you,” she declared warmly, holding his 
unwounded hand in both of hers. “But I was a silly, vain girl, Amos 
—not worthy of your noticing me. You 'are far too noble—and too 
brave a man, to have ever....” 

“Loved you so madly. No,—no. I loved you truly. Now that 
you are not married—and think I am not a coward—love is a be¬ 
wildering happiness to me.” He stopped again, panting for breath. 
“When I am well—I shall prove my love to you.” 

Margery looking down, saw suddenly with the nurse’s eye. Yes, 
it would be right to let him think she loved him. 

“You have already proved it,” she said tenderly. 

The glad light in his eyes, hurt her so, that she trembled. 

“I didn’t know—the meaning of ’perfect joy’ until now,” he said 
between gasps, his eyes glowing like stars. He raised her hand and 
pressed it to his lips; sighed happily; and closing his lid's went to 
sleep. 


THE END. 
































































































































































































